


The Black Road

by Guede



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Amorality, Beating, Betrayal, Biting, Bondage, Dark Harry Potter, Demon Deals, Dom/sub Undertones, Drunk Draco Malfoy, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Forced Orgasm, Forced Prostitution, Gallows Humor, Grief/Mourning, Hate Sex, Horcruxes, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Insanity, Knifeplay, Lima Syndrome, Lucius Malfoy's Cane, M/M, Nipple Torture, Not Safe Sane and Consensual, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rimming, Rough Sex, Self-Destruction, Self-Hatred, Self-Sacrifice, Smoking, Stockholm Syndrome, Survivor Guilt, Torture, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 77,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24481996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: Once upon a time, Harry Potter was killed and Voldemort won the war. Things went from bad to worse, and strangely enough, this was even true for those that had supported Voldemort. Nothing in the world was as it should have been.And then there was a second chance, and things changed. They did not, however, change nicely or easily or even willingly.Note:Originally written and posted to LiveJournal in 2006; doesn't draw on the movies or anything afterHalf-Blood Prince(and diverges from that book).
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Ginny Weasley, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Lucius Malfoy/Harry Potter, Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy, Sirius Black/Severus Snape
Comments: 59
Kudos: 87





	1. Unpaid Debts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bargain is a bargain. And some have long memories.

“Death reaps, but the devil harvests.”  
\--Frieda Ungern, _The Club Dumas_ by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

* * *

They’d broken something in the world when they had triumphed. Even for the British Isles, the weather had taken a turn for the blacker, and the air always carried a tinge of cold rot no matter how deep into the unspoilt countryside one took oneself. Of course, life carried on—it adapted itself to the darker, cloudier, colder world. It grew rougher hair to keep out the weather and brighter, madder eyes to light the day; it went about in a perpetual seething rage to keep itself warm. It was not, Lucius secretly admitted, what he had expected.

The entire point had been to refine the state of things, to pare away the wildness and yet what seemed to have happened was a resurgence of the very primeval coarseness that should have been done away with, once and for all. What _should_ have happened was a purification: the sky should have become clearer, the air better, and the sunlight sunnier. Romantic nonsense it might be, but what was the damned point of owning a country manor and Italian summer villas if it was always raining?

And when it was not raining, it was bleeding. The side of the Dark Lord certainly had won, but the resistance lingered on at the margins of the world as if it too was a manifestation of the dregs of the past that refused to be washed away by the more advanced present. Time wore down on the fools, but strangely enough, it aged them into something hungry and vicious and _resilient_ instead of weakening them. They skulked at the edges and snapped whenever a weakling strayed too near, but they were growing into the skulking, reveling and flourishing in it instead of dying gradually away.

For that reason, Lucius was out tonight prowling the old ruins of Hogwarts. He should have been home hosting the Dark Lord, who was making one of his tours of the land as the old English kings had done, or at the very least, been overseeing matters at the Ministry, but instead he was here chasing down a dubious tip. This sort of duty was menial and hadn’t been assigned to him since the war had begun in earnest. It worried him somewhat to think that the balance of power might have shifted without him even having an inkling of it. He’d managed to have many of his rivals neutralized during the war, but a few had been too lucky or too clever.

On the other hand, lately something had been on…Lucius gazed around the gnarled half-tiers of broken staircases, empty of all life…on Voldemort’s mind. The Lord had had visible flaws before, what with his obsession with Potter, but in all other aspects he’d been one worthy of serving. Now he was sending off Dolohov to do library research in the Serbian hills, and Macnair to digging up the remains of burned witches, and Lucius to poke about an abandoned school in hopes of something he kept buried deep from any of them.

Hogwarts had survived the final campaign in relatively intact shape, but immediately after it’d come into his possession, Voldemort had ordered it torn down as much as possible. All that was now left aboveground were the spindly remnants of a few stairs, arching up like the broken ribs of a giant, but the foundations and much of the basement levels had resisted any damage. Lucius headed for the most stable-looking entrance into the earth.

It made sense to him—after all, the pro-Voldemort base at Hogwarts had been centered in the Slytherin halls. It also made sense, in a twisted sort of way, that any resistors that would dare venture here would take shelter in the most complete part.

He unsheathed his wand as he went over the threshold and down the first step, murmuring spells for light and for detection of magic. The tip flared, then settled to a low yellow glow, but nothing else came to life. The stairs were so covered with refuse that his shoes sank an inch into it and he had to probe each step with his cane prior to trusting his weight to it. They didn’t appear to have been disturbed any time recently, nor had they been rearranged magically, but he still remained on his guard.

Little things scuttled out of the way of his wavery circle of light once he’d reached the bottom. They could have been rats, but even Pettigew in Animagus form didn’t throw off such distorted shadows. Lucius drew his cloak more closely about himself, gritted his teeth, and reminded himself that he had risked a good deal to get where he currently stood with Voldemort and that losing ground over some vermin would be pathetic. Even if he was currently doubting how that gained ground’s value had appreciated over the years.

He moved quickly through the halls, peeking here and there but mainly letting his spells do his searching for him. No signs of life greater than raccoon-size were in evidence here; not even the darker denizens of the Forest had dared move into these ruins. Reasons for why were given by the occasional sharp slam of a door far too close after Lucius’ heels, or the flickering at the edge of his magic that had nothing to do with the wind. There shouldn’t have been any wind down here, anyway.

But nothing. Nothing even remotely capable of danger to a full-grown pureblood wizard was in evidence. Vaguely relieved, Lucius withdrew back towards his point of entry. He was almost certain now that this mission had been fabricated by a jealous colleague in order to humiliate him, and was quite enjoying his composition of a scathing, insinuating report that should draw out that poison well.

The light went out.

Lucius didn’t make the mistake of whirling about, or any of the moves so favored by idiotic heroes. He stood calmly in place, keeping a firm grip on his wand and his cane, and quickly reconstructed in his mind what his surroundings had looked like. The nearest wall had been to his left, the hall had extended before and behind him and had angled slightly rightwards. The moment the darkness had descended, every tiny sound in the place had been magnified and distorted, but he remembered something of having to sneak around in the dark to early meetings. Nothing was moving that was much larger than a housecat.

He glanced down at himself. None of the charms he had woven through his clothing were glowing, which indicated that no kind of magic was responsible for this. Of course, he could have walked into a magical dead-zone, and the chances of those appearing in Hogwarts had greatly increased since its fall.

He held out his wand and whispered, “ _Lumos_.”

It obligingly lit. Lucius looked carefully around himself, but only saw what he had before the light had gone out. It certainly had been a disturbing anomaly, but apparently not a dangerous one. He made a note of it and turned around to continue moving towards the exit; the beam from his wand swept about and passed over a white, white face with burning eyes.

He instantly recoiled, raising both cane and wand as half-a-dozen defensive spells sprang to mind. His heel trampled on something that moved and he stumbled, sliding sideways to avoid a complete fall. In doing so he lost sight of the other person, but he managed to snap off a _Stupefy_ in the correct direction. His cloak whipped about him and he irritably beat it down with his cane, searching wildly for the other intruder.

His spell apparently had missed, because no body lay on the stones, but once again, no one else appeared to be in the halls as indicated by magic, sound or sight. It could have been a ghost, perhaps.

Lip curling, Lucius gave his stunned mind a rough shake. Hardly a possibility. All the ghosts had been sent on their way, and any new ones treated the same; Voldemort hadn’t wished for lingering reminders of what had been, and neither had Lucius. So it—

Something tore his cane out of his grip, and almost in the same instant, he was struck heavily on the back of his neck. His entire body immediately numbed and his joints loosened, lost their understanding with gravity. He fell, and so slackly that he hardly felt the impact of his knees on the ground. He did feel when his palms belatedly slammed out, sting of their save rocking up his arms and curling painfully about his shoulders. His breath hissed raggedly out through his teeth.

He’d held onto his wand till nearly the last moment and so it hadn’t fallen very far from him. The tip still cast its light so he could see it had landed a mere five inches from his right hand.

“Wouldn’t be thinking of that, if I were you,” said Harry Potter’s voice. A cool, rounded object lightly touched the back of Lucius’ sore neck. Then it pressed down and twisted so something sharp caught at the skin there, and Lucius understood what had happened to his cane. “Mr. Malfoy.”

The pain in Lucius’ neck was near-stunning and negatively affected his vision for some moments—so long, in fact, that he almost feared serious injury had been done to his spine. It offered the incredulous part of his mind something to busy itself with so the rest of it could deal with what apparently had just happened. “I was under the impression that you were dead, Mr. Potter.”

“Then get under the impression that I’m alive.” It definitely was Harry Potter’s voice, with all the brat’s customary badly-suppressed rage and fear. He abruptly spun the cane-head and pulled it up so it knotted itself in Lucius’ hair. Then he jerked so Lucius was thrown off one knee and to the side.

It looked like Potter as well, down to the scars peeking from his shirt-cuffs and -collar. Someone with a marginal sense of style had dressed him in black Muggle-style clothing: trousers, shirt, slightly oversized suit-jacket, sneakers. He still had his glasses, the nose-bridge taped together and a crack gracing the right lens. The crack Lucius remembered: it’d been from Alecto’s final shot before Potter, screaming like a harpy, had turned on her. He’d killed her, but had fatally forgotten about the rest of them.

The cane in Lucius’ hair jerked again, and this time the snake-head fangs scraped over his scalp. “I’m alive,” Potter repeated more calmly. “And I’m here to—”

In this position, Potter couldn’t see immediately behind Lucius, who took advantage of that by snatching up his wand and flipping it to point straight at Potter. “ _Crucio_!”

Potter shuddered back, a look of horror on his face…then relaxed. He even grinned; the brat seemed to be growing ever more comfortable and assured of himself. “Don’t be an ass, Malfoy.”

Lucius did not, in spite of the shock, drop his wand. He scrambled around and made an attempt to escape, only to be hauled back by his hair. He felt several strands wrench out before Potter did something and suddenly the cane was out and slamming down across the back of his neck again. This time, it was hard enough to knock him out.

* * *

He woke up with aching head and limbs, and the taste of raw cotton in his mouth. His cloak was gone and he was lying directly on the chilly stones; a crack in one flagstone was wide enough to allow his knee to slide partially into its jagged grip. When he attempted to move, he found that his hands had been bound.

“That took a while.” Potter was casually seated on the ground next to Lucius’ head with Lucius’ cloak in his hands. He’d stopped with his fingers raised so Lucius could see the thin, silvery strands that Potter had wound around them and appeared to be pulling from the fabric itself. When Potter noticed, he flicked them off and they dropped sluggishly back into the cloak. “Probably a good thing to remember, that. You’re more delicate up here than I remember.”

He folded the cloak with a deft quickness that Lucius didn’t remember, and secreted it away somewhere without a single bit of magic flaring. The removal of the cloak revealed Lucius’ cane and wand lying over Potter’s thighs. The latter Potter picked up first, twirling it lazily in his fingers. Lucius’ hackles rose at that, but he remained silent to see if Potter would let any more information drop.

“Like I was saying, I came back. And I did that for a reason,” Potter said.

“I suppose people don’t generally resurrect themselves on a whim,” Lucius allowed himself to reply. He pushed himself up with his hands till he could sit on his heels. His head ached abominably, and the stripe of bruising across his nape occasionally made his senses spin off-kilter, but otherwise he seemed relatively intact.

Potter’s mouth twitched, then twitched again. The first time might have been anger, but the second was clearly amusement. He stopped spinning Lucius’ wand and held it parallel to the ground with one hand while he pinched the fingers of the other around the tip. Then he drew away his left hand, as if pulling…and he was pulling out something, a thick greenish fiber that elongated at about the same rate that Lucius’ ribs were abruptly crushing themselves. When Potter wrapped the fiber around his hand and snapped it free, it felt as if fire had replaced the blood in Lucius’ body.

His breath echoed harshly in his ears, and he was dimly aware that he’d collapsed onto elbows and knees again. Lucius forced himself to breathe slowly till he’d recovered, then looked up in time to see Potter dangling the green strip like a treat. The shadows from the walls and the floors and ceiling suddenly flooded towards him, little tendrils curling upwards like so many begging hounds. After teasing them a few times, Potter let them have it; Lucius couldn’t stop himself from writhing as a thousand tiny mouths ripped into his flesh.

Not physically, because he wasn’t missing gigantic chunks of himself when Potter yanked him onto his feet, but nevertheless it was debilitating. Lucius swayed, staggered back and fell almost gratefully against the slimy wall. He stumbled through a nest of shadows as he did and they broke up with near-audible snarls, a thin mist rising from them to his nose: sulfur and brimstone.

Potter stood back and watched Lucius without any particular expression on his face. The brat had been all of sixteen when he’d died, barely beginning to grow, but wherever he’d been since then, it had allowed him to continue maturing. He was slender as the cane he nonchalantly held, but only two or so inches shorter than Lucius. His eyes flickered red as Lucius watched—red, but not quite the same shade as Voldemort’s, which ruled out one conclusion. They were the red of drying blood, old and full of memory and cold vengeance, and not young or hot at all.

Wizards were not religious, and for good reason, but Lucius could find no other explanation. “You do realize that dealing with the devil rarely turns out well.”

“Thanks for your concern, but there’s no _deal_ ,” Potter said, pitching his voice to be condescending. He didn’t quite cover up the bitterness. “I work for him. And y’see, he takes care of his own, too.”

“And here I would have thought that you, of all people—”

Potter’s snap-temper hadn’t entirely disappeared. Before Lucius could finish, he was sharply pushed towards the stairs. A blast of wind whistled down through the top and cut straight through his clothing. Then another one rose, but from behind him, and this one was blistering hot so he was sweating by the time he staggered up the first stair.

“I see your former allies don’t approve,” Lucius muttered.

“Yeah.” It sounded like Potter had regained his strange sanguinity. “Hogwarts isn’t exactly blessed ground, but it’s pretty close.”

Nothing untoward greeted them at the top, which left Lucius faintly relieved. The wind must have been Hogwarts’ last protest. He shivered as the cold night air hit him, but was still able to note the way Potter had talked of ‘holy ground.’ If they passed a church…“I never realized you’d grown so desperate near the end, to invoke that. You might as well have joined our side.”

“And then we’d all be talking to Lucifer anyway,” Potter snorted. He jabbed Lucius hard in the side with the cane-tip, then repeated the gesture precisely on the other side to keep Lucius on a pained but even keel. “Voldemort’s the one he wants to get. He’s tired of getting put off his debt-collection.”

Lucius stopped and turned around. “You’re here as his collector?” he asked in disbelief. “What, no angels greeted the fallen hero?”

They were just on the edge of Hogwarts’ grounds; the ankle-high crumble of rock that marked the old walls bumped up against Lucius’ heel as he backed away from Potter, whose eyes had gone reddish again. He stepped over it without looking down.

“I am here,” Potter said in carefully-modulated tones of rage, “Because Voldemort was stupid enough to promise his soul, and then even stupider to think that he could get around that by partitioning it so Lucifer couldn’t collect it all at once.”

“Partitioning it?” The idea rang a small—a very small—bell in Lucius’ mind. He took another step backwards so he was standing entirely outside of Hogwarts. “I still fail to see what this has to do with your ending up on Lucifer’s doorstep. Unless you mean to say that in your final foolishness, you thought a sixteen-year-old boy could beat Voldemort at his own game?”

Without a wand, the kind of magic Lucius could perform was limited, but an emergency escape shouldn’t have been beyond him. He waited till the anger in Potter’s eyes had risen and spilled over, and the moment Potter lunged for him, forgetting all about magic, Lucius threw himself to the ground.

For a heart-stopping second, he felt nothing and he feared it wouldn’t—

\--but then he was rolling on a hard wooden floor, and not wet grass. He knocked up against a hard piece of furniture, then tipped backwards and over to come to a rest on his side. Breathing heavily, Lucius slowly pushed himself up the side of the bench and pulled at his bonds. Of all the things Potter could have used…the ropes weren’t even bespelled, and came undone easily.

Then Lucius looked around himself, and understood that in fact, his spell hadn’t worked. He was in a church and not a polished marble hall, and moreover, the church appeared to be occupied. Three dark figures stood at the other end of the aisle, frozen with their heads turned towards him.

It was dark. He couldn’t make out any details of them, so they couldn’t possibly see anything of him.

One of them raised a wand and aimed it. Lucius scrambled behind the bench, wincing as his haste made him bang his foot against the wood. He heard something strike the ground where he’d been and the entire area briefly lit up. Keeping his head down, he made for the end of the pew, where he thought he could see a sidedoor hidden in the shadows.

“It’s Malfoy!” someone shouted. “It’s a trap! Come back, damn it!”

Somewhere to the left, a pew suddenly rattled as if a heavy weight had dropped on it. Then another, but this one was closer, and—someone was jumping from pew to pew. The benches were so long that Lucius didn’t have room to move laterally…he ducked down and wriggled beneath the pew to his left, reasoning that they’d expect him to flee. His back hit something and he reached behind himself too quickly so his sleeve caught on a splinter. When he yanked it free, the damned thing snapped too loudly.

“Then why’s he crawling? He’s not got any bloody back-up with him! Go to it! Get that bastard!”

He shoved the foot-rest up without even trying to keep silent, rolled the rest of the way under, and kept on going more silently for another two pews. Then he resumed his crawling for the end of the bench. The second voice had been recognizable as a Weasley, though which one was currently beyond Lucius. He had no idea who the first was, but it was obvious he’d gotten himself dropped into a resistance meeting. Wandless as he was, he didn’t stand a chance in facing them.

A pew only two away suddenly clattered. Lucius dropped himself low to the ground and froze in place, listening as hard as he could for any indication as to who or what was coming after him. He could hear rough, deep breathing that had a peculiar wet wheeze to it, and the slight creaking of wood, as if the other had to constantly shift his weight. It sounded as if they were still quite a few feet from him, so he slowly raised himself enough to crawl.

The bench top right above him rattled; Lucius whipped around just in time to see yellow eyes and snapping teeth. He threw up his arm, then twisted in an attempt to hit the beast in the side of the head, but the werewolf was too fast. Its head flashed forward and suddenly Lucius was holding very, very still lest the teeth pricking through his sleeve sank any deeper.

Running feet soon resolved into the other two, one of whom had their hood down and wand outstretched. The wand-tip was glowing purple and the arm holding it was visibly shaking, as was the werewolf. A quick glance showed that the beast’s eyes were the same color: so they’d figured out a way to control lycanthropes. This was information that had to be passed on.

“Is it Malfoy?” the Weasley asked. It was one of the boys—older, Lucius thought. “Damn it, that tail’s in the way. Make him move—make him move.”

A name had almost slipped out there. One that may or may not have started with an ‘H,’ but the echoes in this church were too distorting for Lucius to be certain. He glanced about himself again, but couldn’t see any means of escape.

As if he knew what Lucius’ thoughts were, the wolf growled. It didn’t cause the teeth clamped over Lucius’ arm to break the skin, but it did push the point. Then it went very still, and he could see the purple bleeding in and out of its eyes.

“What is—”

“Church is closed for service,” the Weasley called, apparently to someone at the door. “Sorry, but-- _Harry_?”

The wolf abruptly dropped Lucius’ arm. It paced forward along the bench, then half-turned so its breath hit the back of Lucius’ head. It whined, shook itself hard, and then whined again, pawing at its muzzle. The figure with the wand had turned to look at the doorway, and their hand was shaking even more.

“Harry, what—”

“I’m not Harry,” said Harry Potter. “I’m a figment of your imagination.”

The Weasley boy laughed incredulously and started to lift his hand to his head, then dropped it. “And if you were a Death-Eater, you would’ve said ‘yes, it’s me.’ Come in here so we can see.”

“I can’t.” There seemed to be genuine regret in his voice. There certainly was real bitterness. “I can’t come in the church.”

The werewolf stopped scratching at itself and drew itself up so it could look down at Lucius. Its upper lip curled to show saliva-stained white teeth, and every hair on its body seemed to be bristling. Its eyes were pure yellow.

“What do you—” Weasley started.

He was interrupted by his partner, who was frantically jabbing her wand at the werewolf. “No. No, no, _no_! No—get away from him—don’t bite—”

“I can’t come in the church,” Potter sang out almost cheerfully. He wasn’t speaking to them now.

Lucius glanced in Potter’s direction and almost missed the werewolf’s forward lunge; he slammed himself backward as teeth snapped a hairs-breadth from his face. The wolf was in a frenzy, jerking and throwing his head about as he struggled against some invisible hold. In the aisle, Weasley and his partner were alternately shouting at Potter and at the werewolf, but whatever control they had over the beast was rapidly slipping away. A good chunk of it abruptly gave way and the werewolf instantly strained forward that extra fraction of an inch.

At the same time, Lucius took the chance and dropped himself to the ground. There was the risk that the wolf would catch part of him on the way, and he did feel teeth snatch at his shoulder, but they came away with only a scrap of fabric.

He hit the floor and scrambled towards the end, only to have a barrier spring up in his way. Lucius turned himself around, ducking quickly to avoid the wolf still snapping at him, and saw Weasley starting to run in from the other end. Damn Potter, but what on earth was he—

An audible pop and the wolf surged forward, leaping off the pew between Lucius and Weasley. All restraints on it were clearly gone now, and it was already gathering itself for a last leap.

Rational thinking failed and the instinct to preserve oneself at all costs took over: Lucius seized a Bible from the nearest book-holder and tossed it at the wolf, who caught it between its teeth and savaged it in passing. Scraps of paper blew up around Lucius, then spun inwards so quickly that he had no time to throw up his arms.

A rough hold took him by the back of the neck and pressed him back down towards the floor, while two feet abruptly dropped to either side of his head. Potter squatted over him like a triumphant hunter over the bloody carcass. “Sorry, Remus,” he said. “You never were going to get this one. You don’t want him, anyway.”

The werewolf had been thrown off its feet by the wind, but had quickly scrambled up and was warily watching Potter. It kept its head down, but held itself in preparation to dive for the throat, not to grovel.

The quality of Potter’s voice changed again, lost its hard edge. He shifted so he could lift his hand towards the werewolf…who recoiled quite vigorously after some hesitation. The grip on Lucius’ neck snapped so tight he could hardly breathe.

“You’re not Harry,” Weasley’s partner finally said.

Potter produced a credible snarl himself; the werewolf responded by withdrawing further down the aisle with teeth bared and every muscle stiffened. “No, I’m not. Get us out of here, Lucius.”

“What?” Lucius gasped.

“This is an even dirtier trick—” Weasley said. Apparently he still thought of things in terms of school-life.

A bright flash and an explosion briefly obscured the werewolf and his two keepers from Lucius’ sight. When things cleared, Lucius had just enough time to glimpse the trio stumbling away before Potter jerked him up and slammed him into the floor. His head had been turned so his nose remained unbroken, but his cheekbone felt as if it’d been pulped.

Then, to his utter shock, Potter slid his wand into his hand. “ _Get us out of here_ ,” Potter softly, viciously repeated.

As far as Lucius could tell, _Imperio_ was nowhere in evidence, but he found himself obeying nonetheless.


	2. Snake in the Nest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has several points to make, and a very clear way of making sure people pay attention.

“ALONE, _adj._ In bad company.”  
\-- _The Devil’s Dictionary_ , Ambrose Bierce.

* * *

Lucius hadn’t, in any armchair scenario, ever imagined the events of the past few hours and so he’d been utterly unprepared to respond to them. When they dropped into his suite at the Catacombs, he was as surprised as Potter.

“This is what Voldemort picked when he couldn’t have Hogwarts?” After a moment, Potter laughed humorlessly and climbed off of Lucius. He casually rolled Lucius over with his foot, but didn’t bother retrieving Lucius’ wand. “Figures. Also figures you’d dress up your rooms like a bloody palace.”

After the debacle in the church, Lucius was much more wary of being given easy escapes on a platter. He pointed his wand at the door and muttered the summoning charm that should have seen one of the hall’s Gryffindor whores come dazedly into the room.

Nothing happened.

Potter came back and used Lucius’ cane to knock the wand from Lucius’ hand and send it skittering across the room. Then he flipped the cane so its fangs were digging into the underside of Lucius’ chin. “He’s not here.”

“No, Voldemort’s at his own hall. This is his replacement for the Ministry,” Lucius said. He sat up till if he’d wanted to go any higher, he would have had to stand, but somehow he doubted that Potter would allow that. The fangs hadn’t lost a bit of their pressure, and when he stopped moving, they dug in till he felt a few drops of blood run down his throat. “Business only, if you would.”

“Yeah? I’d like to see what he calls just ‘business.’ Seemed to me like he enjoyed every damn bit of it.” The cane-head pressed forward, then stroked down over the gorge of Lucius’ throat. It rotated so the fangs caught the ripped edge of Lucius’ collar, then pulled it away from his neck and shoulder. “Remus didn’t bite all the way through…that’s good. He doesn’t deserve to feel guilty over you.”

Lucius arched an eyebrow. Then he winced as the snake-head drew blood from one of the bruises ringing the base of his throat. “I understand from Severus that Lupin might take that as a case of like-father, like-son—or perhaps like-godfather, like-godson would be more accurate. Precedent indicates that he’ll forgive you eventually.”

“I’m not expecting him to forgive me,” Potter snapped. He stalked off a few paces, pacing about the room like a caged tiger. Anyone else might have been interested in the sheaves of parchment littering Lucius’ desk, or the assortment of confiscated magical objects carelessly scattered over the shelves next to it, but not Potter. “Who is here, then? Macnair? Snape?”

When Lucius didn’t answer, Potter delivered a savage kick to Lucius desk. The leg snapped and Lucius instinctively flinched, but he rather enjoyed the sight of dozens of scrolls cascading onto Potter’s feet when the desk tipped. Potter whirled back and went another round about the room before coming back to Lucius. He jammed the cane-tip to within a thumbs-width of Lucius’ right eye.

“Who is here?” Potter repeated in that same soft, lethal voice he’d used before in the church.

Something about it chilled Lucius’ nerves, but he forced himself to meet Potter’s now-green, now-red eyes. “You need me to get to the rest. You might not be bound by the strictures of our magic anymore, but you are bound by some rules. You can’t enter churches. You need me to bring you places.”

“Are you suggesting we cut a deal?” Potter lifted his eyebrow. Strangely enough, he appeared to be calming down. Then his face twisted in rage. “Maybe I was just being polite,” he hissed.

He swung the cane before Lucius could duck.

* * *

The blow had taken Lucius on the other side of the head, so when he woke, both sides of his skull were aching badly. His pulse roared in his ears and his stomach was terribly empty except for gnawing hunger.

Someone was touching his shoulder, pulling his shirt back onto it. He couldn’t immediately remember where he was or what he had been doing, and reflexively attempted to shrug off the other person. “Thought Macnair had beaten the sympathy ploys out of all you Mudblood whores.”

“Guess you know better than to try that with me,” said Harry Potter in a sarcastic voice, and then Lucius remembered.

He jerked away, but his hands wouldn’t move and Potter had hold of his hair before he could go far enough. Potter yanked him up so the top of his head slammed against something hard; Lucius’ vision, still recovering in the first place, spun wildly and he slumped against a heavy wooden pole. A table leg, he realized after a few moments. He rubbed his hands along it and found that his wrists were bound again, but behind him, and this time the bonds weren’t mere rope.

They coiled and slithered around his wrists when he tested them as if they were living snakes, then snapped tight the moment he ceased struggling so his hands immediately went numb. He blinked rapidly till his vision had completely restored itself and attempted to take stock of the new situation.

While he blurrily did that, Potter crawled around him and secured his wrists to the table-leg. His shirt slipped off his shoulder again and Potter pulled it up with mock-graciousness. “I cleaned you up a little. Didn’t want any of Remus’ spit getting into your cuts,” Potter said, flicking the torn front of Lucius’ shirt.

It and his trousers were the only pieces of clothing he still wore, though he could see his vest and other garments neatly stacked on a nearby chair. His wounds had been treated, but left unbandaged so the slight current of damp air stung them unmercifully. “Why haven’t you killed me?” Lucius bluntly asked.

Instead of answering, Potter frowned and stared at his hand. After a moment, he shook it. That apparently didn’t produce the desired result, so he shook it again. This time, a few long gold hairs drifted off it. He looked from them to Lucius, then wrinkled his nose. “I can’t believe you don’t pull out hair on everything. It snags so easily.”

A thin coil of grey stuff appeared in his hand. He flicked it casually out, so casually…Lucius didn’t realize he’d flinched till Potter laughed.

“I’m tying it back, not using it to strangle you,” Potter said, and then he did just that. “Not so sure that I _need_ you alive, are you?”

“What do you want?” There were wards and spying spells on every inch of the Catacombs, Lucius thought. Voldemort had a healthy distrust for his supporters, and kept close watch on them. But Lucius likewise had a healthy dislike for being under surveillance and had done his damnedest to keep his rooms free of scrutiny without Voldemort noticing. Now he found himself hoping he’d missed something.

Potter lifted and dropped a shoulder. He reached behind himself, and when his hand reappeared, it was holding Lucius’ wand. Lucius’ peripheral vision picked up Potter’s grin, and that was when Lucius belatedly noticed how his eyes had gone straight to the wand. “You want this back, don’t you?”

The wand tipped forward till its tip was barely grazing Lucius’ lower lip. It traced the underside of his mouth twice before Potter flicked it off and to the side. Then he tapped the long bruise stretching along Lucius’ cheekbone. It felt as if he’d inserted a hot poker tip just beneath the bone; Lucius hissed. “I was under the impression that you’d stopped taking prisoners.”

“You’re under a lot of impressions when it comes to me. Most of them wrong, I ‘pect.” Wherever the wand touched, it left behind a warm, not unpleasant tingling. It wasn’t necessarily Harry’s doing, but Lucius wasn’t quite certain that Harry was unaware of the effect. The wand-tip skittered down Lucius’ chest, somewhat off-center because it was following the edge of the collar, then the tear that artificially widened the collar. “Fine. You’re half-right. Having you do…things for me does make my job easier.”

“What exactly is your job again? You dun wizards for someone else’s debts?” Lucius concentrated on his wand, but could raise only the smallest response. Even though it was in Potter’s hand…Potter had drained it, somehow. When he’d pulled out the green stuff, that had been some crystallized form of magic. And he’d _fed_ it to the shadows, as if he’d been baiting wolfhounds—Lucius’ pride snarled at his already-frayed composure.

Lucius’ cane had been lying somewhere on the floor behind Potter, who flipped it up and around and abruptly jerked it diagonally over Lucius’ chest so the teeth caught, ripped, and stopped a hair away from Lucius’ right nipple. Expression devoid of curiosity, he reached out and used a finger to stroke over Lucius’ right pectoral. The flesh there spasmed, and Lucius gradually became aware that he was holding his breath. He irritably inhaled, but his attempt to do so normally turned into an embarrassingly ragged gasp.

“Malfoy.” The edge of Potter’s voice was hard as steel, but oddly lacking in rage. It rather sounded like a weary professor exasperated by a recalcitrant student. “How long was I dead?”

Curious question. The cane dropped and the wand nosed beneath Lucius’ shirt to tease right at the end of the fresh pair of cuts. Its blunt end flicked a few times against Lucius’ nipple so that bit of flesh stiffened; Lucius focused on regulating his breathing and thoughts. “Why? Haven’t you read your tombstone?”

“I don’t have a tombstone and you know it,” Potter replied in a monotone. He pressed down on the wand and twisted it so pain flared up, then trickled warm drops down Lucius’ chest. He was considerate enough to angle the wand so it held the shirt away from the blood. “Hell. So you people _are_ this twisted. I thought it was just the part about making us hurt…but you’re all wired funny, aren’t you?”

His eyes had dropped to below Lucius’ waistband. The wand-tip rubbed around the nipple, scratching the areola and pushing it towards the center in an encouragement of the stiffening. Lucius briefly damned what had seemed like a good, Dark idea of turning a weakness into a strength. “You were dead for two years.”

That visibly rocked Potter. He stopped toying with the cut and jerked up his head to stare at Lucius. “ _Two_?”

“Surprised it took them so long to resort to you?” Lucius asked. He used Potter’s moment of distraction to twist slightly so the wand slipped off his nipple and onto his less sensitive ribs.

Potter _laughed_. Laughed and suddenly his hand flashed out, pinning Lucius against the table-leg by the throat. He shoved his head inside Lucius’ shirt and his tongue whirled with the blood drops, shockingly hot. “I thought I’d been in hell for _a century_ , you ass. All because goddamn Voldemort had to be a smart-aleck, and…but it’s only been a couple years. Here.”

“What about Voldemort?” Lucius gasped. Inelegant and obvious, but he was more than a little preoccupied with trying to escape the reach of Potter’s tongue. He twisted and jerked, but the bonds—and Potter’s hand—held him; the tongue felt unnaturally elongated and was like a whip that had been soaked in acid. It flicked around his rasped nipple and burned the raw skin, then drew out painfully ticklish spots among the bruises that nestled between Lucius’ ribs. “Flattering of you, but…I don’t preserve quite that well.”

“Yeah, well, I started to think something was up when I saw you. You’re still fresh as a daisy.” The phrase shouldn’t have fit so well in Potter’s mouth—it was too salacious for the pure-minded Gryffindor figurehead. But his voice curled comfortably around it, made the words sleek as the wriggle of his tongue downwards over Lucius’ belly. He craned his head so Lucius could stare straight down into his very, very green eyes. “How’s Draco, by the way?”

Lucius wasn’t able to keep himself from stiffening in time. He attempted to steady his voice on the off-chance that Potter hadn’t noticed—not likely, considering how Potter was pressed against him. He could feel the tape holding together Potter’s glasses. “My son is fine.”

“Really. You know, I thought of him while I was down there. Fucking little ferret, he’ll probably find that flattering.” Potter nuzzled very gently along Lucius’ waistband; at the same time, he swapped cane for wand and jabbed the wand painfully into the soft flesh of Lucius’ inner thigh. The tip slowly, agonizingly ground towards Lucius’ groin. “I should look him up. Catch up on schooldays, all that.”

“No—”

Lucius was almost thankful to Potter for smacking the wand up against his prick, then stabbing downward so it slid roughly over his balls, narrowly missing pinning them to the floor. It cut him off before the rest of his ill-advised exclamation could beat free of his mouth.

Working his way back up, Potter mouthed idly at Lucius’ collarbone. It would have been almost lover-like if he hadn’t been prodding between Lucius’ legs with the wand, every jab a very real threat of excruciating impalement. “Were you just going to offer to keep me away from your son? That’s sweet. So you bastards do give a shit about someone besides yourselves.”

“What do you want?” Lucius repeated. To his ears, he sounded both more forceful and more desperate than the first time he’d asked. The next time Potter scraped the wand along the back of his balls, he twisted up and managed to get his legs out from under himself. He yanked up one knee, then made to draw up the other, but before he could, Potter shoved in and latched onto Lucius’ neck.

The teeth over Lucius’ jugular were, like the tongue, abnormally long. They also felt as sharp as the werewolf’s teeth had been. Potter drew them lightly down the artery, then chewed his way back up in the manner of a cat stripping flesh from bone. It at least felt as if he were stripping the top layers of skin; Lucius gritted his teeth, but openly made attempts to get away from Potter’s mouth and hands. It didn’t appear that degree of responsiveness made a difference to Potter, so playing stick-of-wood no longer would do any good.

When Potter finally released Lucius’ throat, he immediately moved to bite along Lucius’ jaw and up behind Lucius’ ear. The corner of his glasses frame periodically dug into Lucius’ earlobe. He spoke no words, but the front of Lucius’ trousers was suddenly loose and his hand was working the wand down it, using that to roll Lucius’ frustratingly receptive prick against Lucius’ thigh. “Do you know what a Horcrux is?” he breathed, in much the same way a courtesan would invite her current customer to bed. “I’m one—was one, anyway.”

Lucius did not, but the moment he got free of this, he’d start searching and he wouldn’t stop till he found out. His breathing was short and uneven in spite of all his attempts at control, and his legs were shaking. He winced as the wand scraped over the head of his prick, then arched involuntarily because the Dark Mark on his arm was burning and so was Potter’s breath on his skin, and the two kinds of heat were completely incompatible.

Potter swore, crude and like a Muggle. His other hand had still been curved around Lucius’ throat, but now he dropped it to Lucius’ arm. Beneath it, the Mark gave one last excruciating flare before suddenly falling silent. Oddly enough, so did Potter—he momentarily stilled, his head cocking as if he was listening to something. Then he continued casually raping favorable responses from Lucius’ body.

“Damn thing got me sent to hell for…wasn’t bloody fair. I wasn’t the goddamn idiot that made the pact with him, so why should I get dragged down into it?” One moment Potter was pouting like a spoilt teenager that had no greater worries than what cravate to wear to the next social outing, and the next he was working his hand and mouth in concert like a practiced whore. He tickled the base of Lucius’ prick with the wand-tip. “Never mind, it’s a _war_. It’s supposed to be unfair.”

Voldemort was going to notice the absence, Lucius dimly thought. He’d notice and unless Potter was more careless than he’d actually been so far, Lucius would have no way of proving the truth as an excuse. Perhaps Potter would get so caught up in his play and Voldemort would be so disturbed so that Voldemort would come and catch the little bastard at it.

“One nice thing about hell—everyone _looks_ like the vicious son of a bitch they are there,” Potter hissed. He abruptly dropped down and took Lucius’ prick in his mouth in one smooth swallow.

Lucius banged his head against the table-leg, part of which bulged outward so he hit the deepening bruise stretched across the back of his neck. Potter roughly shoved the wand along the curve of Lucius’ perineum so that it seemed he was about to rip apart Lucius’ insides with it. Dizzy, hurting and terrified, Lucius came so hard he briefly thought Potter had actually slammed him into a wall or the floor again.

When his senses regained enough power to make reason of the world again, he saw that Potter had rocked backwards to sprawl on his arse, one knee up and one down. Apparently Potter swallowed, Lucius inanely thought.

“You’re blocking any Legilimens attempts,” Potter mumbled, swiping at his lip. He shook his hands as if flipping off water, then rolled up onto his feet. The last time Lucius had seen him, he’d still retained a touch of adolescent awkwardness when off his broom, but now that eerie grace permeated all of Potter’s movements.

Attempting to see the abstract beauty in terrible things was no longer quite the great concept that it’d formerly seemed, and Lucius found himself flinching from his own thoughts. “Snape mentioned that he’d been ordered to give you lessons.”

Potter smiled crookedly as he pulled his clothing straight. “That didn’t turn out so well. I haven’t been trying, by the way. You know that, and besides, those barriers look like they’re old. Do it against Voldemort? Think he doesn’t know?”

There was no messy ejaculate, but the sweat on Lucius’ body was rapidly cooling and turning into a sticky, revolting coating. It was helping to trap his clothing in disheveled folds and tangles up around him; he twisted clumsily so his shirt-tails fell and partially covered his groin.

“He does. He thinks it’s funny.” Still smiling, Potter leaned forward and swiped his finger over Lucius’ sore cheekbone. He snickered a little when Lucius jerked back so quickly that once again, the hit to the back of Lucius’ neck almost put him out.

“I didn’t realize you were so practiced at pleasuring people orally,” Lucius snapped. “Was that lesson before or after you died?”

His vision finally cleared just in time for him to see the cane coming at his face. He flinched back—but it stopped, side barely grazing his cheek. Potter’s face was a study in wild rage slowly being dragged under control. He worked his jaw, then pressed his lips into a thin bloodless line. The cane abruptly rotated and a ripping pain went down the side of Lucius’ jaw.

Harry hiked the cane through his hand till he could wipe the blood off the snake-head’s fangs. He flicked that off to the side, and out of the corner of his eye, Lucius could see shadows slithering from the corners to catch the drops. Certainly none of them hit the pale carpet.

Then Potter leaned forward, waited for Lucius to stop flinching, and carefully swiped more of the blood from Lucius’ jaw. He fed that to the shadows, too. “Maybe I just need you to keep them happy,” he said in a neutral tone.

“And even after a century in hell, you’ve still got too many morals to grab some stranger off the streets?” Lucius said. His voice was raspy and refused to go above a whisper.

One side of Potter’s mouth twisted. “Maybe I saw you _first_. I don’t know you all that well, after all. Though I guess I know you a little better now. I don’t really know how this goes—do we get to be on a first-name basis now, or is that after you’re so far gone you’ve decided you actually _like_ this?”

The blood was welling up again, hot and thick. Lucius tried to jerk away again when Potter came back for a second collecting, but Potter simply grabbed his jaw and held him in place. Then Potter ducked down and sucked quickly along the cuts; when he leaned back, the blood no longer dripped and the slashes throbbed as if they were half-healed. They probably were. The Mark also throbbed, and Lucius had a suspicion that Potter was weaving some kind of binding spell. At the very least, it was some way of setting his own mark so he or his…lord would remember to deal with Lucius.

Lucius twisted his hands in his bonds till the numbed flesh cried out for mercy. Despite that, he still had to fight a growing lassitude, which was the worst reaction he could possibly be having. Dulled resignation was for the losing side, damn it. “What do you _want_ from me?”

Harry picked up Lucius’ wand and folded his hand over the tip, then corkscrewed it against his palm. He paused in the middle of his cleaning to push up his glasses, which was such an incongruous gesture that Lucius had the damnedest time not breaking out into hysterical laughter. They were still a little foggy, and Potter put down the wand to rub the lenses with his shirt-tail.

There was a sound, and when it increased in volume, Lucius realized that one, it was coming from the hallway, and two, it was composed of hurried footsteps. He’d been missed.

“A declaration of war,” Potter said. He put his glasses back on and picked up both Lucius’ wand and cane, then stood. “Don’t worry about the details—I really just need you to sit there with your mouth shut. Scream and you’ll be begging me to castrate you.”

He faced the door, and Lucius suddenly realized exactly why Potter had been relatively nonchalant for the past few minutes. Whoever was approaching probably did not know what was keeping Lucius, and so they’d come charging in and Potter would be able to take them down like a cat and a wounded bird. And they’d be high-ranking; Voldemort wouldn’t send a lackey after a missing Minister of his.

Lucius pulled at his bonds again, but that only started them squirming and tightening around his wrists. Potter flicked a glance over and he had to stop, but he kept an anxious eye on the door. The footsteps were nearly to it and now he could hear the accompanying voices, one hectoring and loud and the other low and deep but easily identifiable—Severus.

“Professor,” Potter muttered. His voice was too low for Lucius to make out his tone, but his mouth twisted in a telling way. He impatiently tapped Lucius’ cane against his shoe-tip.

There was no possible way Lucius was getting free in time, and no way for him to warn them without Potter noticing. So he’d have to warn them anyway, and hope on Severus’ reflexes. The man had kept both sides guessing long enough as to his true loyalty; he shouldn’t have lost much of his flexibility in the past two years.

The doorknob turned. Lucius bit his lip.

“—with that little Weasley girl,” Avery’s voice said. “Lazy sot. Malfoy, didn’t you—”

Potter’s wand-hand was a blur.

“Duck!” Lucius shouted.

“What the—” Half of Avery’s head appeared, then jerked back as Potter’s _Stupefy_ hit him. A second later, he toppled forward into the room, setting the door to banging against the wall as he did. The door bounced off and slowly swung back to tap at Avery’s stupid, thick skull.

Potter was gone, but a hard, invisible grip had closed Lucius’ throat to speech. Lucius frantically looked about, but saw not a thing out of place—not even a shadow. The bastard couldn’t have Apparated…at least not the way wizards did. When Voldemort had set up his new Ministry in the Catacombs, he’d made sure that Apparation was only possible at the front entrance; the persistence of resisters necessitated a one-way flow of traffic _into_ the building.

Several long seconds passed into a minute, then two. Nothing stirred except Lucius, who was still pulling at his wrists as he tried to look around the whole room.

Severus wasn’t foolish enough to call out. Instead he eased himself through the doorway and over Avery’s prone form, wand out and sweeping from side-to-side in front of him. He saw Lucius at once and immediately his eyebrows flew to his hairline, but he kept his gaze moving till he’d taken in the room. Then he turned to Lucius. “What happened? Where—”

Harry wisped into solidity right behind Severus. Before Lucius could do anything save widen his eyes, Potter had brought the cane down hard on the back of Severus’ neck, much as he had to have done to Lucius. Severus instantly dropped, wand rolling out of his hand.

“You wouldn’t believe how long I’ve wanted to do that,” Potter commented. He didn’t sound all that pleased in spite of his words. The grip on Lucius’ throat relaxed. “By the way, you are going to get it for that yell. Later.”

He calmly collected the two men’s wands and set them on Lucius’ desk along with Lucius’ wand. Then he stuck Lucius’ cane beneath his arm and dragged first Avery, then Severus out of the doorway. Potter kicked the door shut, cast some kind of glowing purple net over the door that vanished into the wood, and then hauled Avery onto Lucius’ bed. He used the cane to prod Avery into a spread-eagle on his back; ropes materialized and stretched Avery’s wrists and ankles towards the poles.

Then Potter turned towards Severus and got him by the wrists, using that hold to drag him over to Lucius. He favored Lucius with another twisted smile as he tied Severus in a sitting position to the other table-leg, then nodded at Avery. “Don’t worry, I’m not fucking _that_. But your bed is going to get dirty.”

Lucius swallowed a thick sourness and felt more well into his mouth. “What are you doing with them?”

“Sort of the same thing I might end up doing to Draco,” Potter said with a casualness that chilled Lucius’ bones. He brought the cane around and used it to prop up Severus’ chin as he peeled back Severus’ right eyelid and peered into the man’s eye. “Of course, that depends.”

“Depends on what?” Lucius asked. Too fast, he thought. Too fast and too desperate-sounding.

Potter didn’t answer. Instead he rocked closer to Severus and moved his hand to cup Severus’ cheek as the other man began to stir. “Hello, sir.”

Severus came completely awake and stiffened so much he shook the table. “Harry,” he croaked.

“Well, we’re definitely not on a first-name only basis,” Harry snapped. He slapped Severus’ head to the side by way of letting go of him and stood up, then went to the bed and climbed up to straddle Avery. “Try to pay attention, sir. This is a crucial demonstration I’m about to give you.”


	3. Contingency Practicum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry’s master plan and little else is revealed.

“The Devil knows more because he is old than because he is the Devil.”  
\-- _Spanish saying_

* * *

“ _Enervate_ ,” Harry snapped. He carelessly tossed Lucius’ cane to the floor. Beneath him, Avery slowly groaned and wriggled his way back to full awareness. The man froze when he realized the pressure on his waist was a person, then froze again when he got a good look at the person. Then he rolled his head to the side and glared about till he saw Lucius.

“This one of your jokes, Malfoy?” Avery said.

Lucius’ personal appearance should have answered that question, but then, Avery had never been the most brilliant wand in the store. Potter, however, made sure that his reply was the only one heard: he hooked his first and second fingers into the top of Avery’s robes, then ripped them to the waist in one seamless movement.

“It’s a very good Polyjuicing, Malfoy,” Avery blathered on. “Great expression on the whore’s—”

Harry lifted his hand, flexed its fingers into claws, then plunged them into Avery’s chest in a businesslike manner. There was a loud, wet squelching sound; Avery screamed shrilly and arched up, then flopped weakly against the bed. After Avery had stopped wriggling around, Potter lifted his free hand and absently rubbed a smear of blood off his chin. He flicked those at the shadows, and Lucius heard Severus stifle a gasp when they lifted off the mattress to beg for them like little snakes.

“It’s not a Polyjuicing. Not that that really matters to you, but…why am I talking to you anyway? Snape? You listening?” Potter said.

“Intently.” Severus filtered all expression out of his voice. His eyes slid sideways to Lucius, and it was clear that he was reassessing the cause of the bruises and cuts he could see.

Lucius felt a momentary prickle of annoyance; yes, he indulged in bedroom practices some might consider unhealthy, but by now Severus should know him well enough to realize that he’d never allow his control of a situation to be in doubt. Then Potter shifted on the bed, and all such petty thoughts slipped from Lucius’ head.

“I am Harry Potter. I am here, and I am solid, and I am not leaving.” Potter’s hand seemed to be _in_ Avery’s chest, yet Avery appeared to be still alive. His head lolled to the side and his eyes rolled wildly to Lucius when Potter leaned down to…sniff Avery? No, merely a bit of playacting to cover up whatever Potter did to make Avery gap open-mouthed, eyes bulging. “At least not till I finish my bit of business.”

Avery arched again as Potter lifted his hand, as if one end of a rope had been tied around his chest and the other attached to Potter’s wrist. His robes and Potter’s jacket prevented Lucius from seeing exactly how the two were joined, but Avery was bent high enough for a little space to be evident beneath him, and in that space something was dripping.

“What…would be your bit of business?” Severus asked, still in that inflectionless voice. It was rather peculiar to hear him shearing all the customary nuances of sarcasm and bitterness from his words. That, and it was a sign of how hostile he’d assessed the situation to be.

“Voldemort made a deal with my lord Lucifer some years ago,” Potter said. The honorific rolled awkwardly off his tongue, and he obviously knew it because immediately afterward, he wrenched Avery about—the ropes binding Avery to the bed suddenly vanished, and Lucius could clearly see the large red stain on the sheets where Avery had lain.

Now Avery was in a sitting position, his broad back blocking most of Potter from Lucius’ view. His legs were folded out of sight, but his arms were visible in their entirety: they hung at his sides, bent a bit at the elbow as if he had been frozen in the act of raising them to grapple with Potter. His head dangled loosely on his neck, tipped back and rolling with every slight movement Potter made.

“He promised his soul, like usual, and then he tried to keep Lucifer from collecting by splitting it up. My lord Lucifer has three parts of it now, but has decided he’d rather not wait for the rest. I’m here to collect them on his behalf, and you’re going to help me do it.” Avery’s head stiffened, then slowly tilted so his ear nearly touched his shoulder; behind him was revealed Potter’s grim expression. Potter locked eyes with Severus, then deliberately looked at Avery.

A harsh shudder passed through Avery’s form and a painful-sounding gurgling came from him. He spasmed once or twice, then suddenly reached behind himself and grabbed his left forearm with his right hand. Over his shoulder, Potter raised an eyebrow.

Dropped it. Avery screamed as he brutally wrenched his own shoulder out of its socket. Then he let go of his arm, now dangling limp as a dead worm. He moved like an automaton…or a puppet, Lucius’ mind obligingly filled in. Shock apparently had reduced it to drawing ridiculously obvious conclusions.

“Three…” Severus’ brows knit together. He was clearly trying to remember what kind of magic could possibly allow someone to split their soul, but didn’t seem to be having any more luck than Lucius.

Less luck—Lucius at least had the term ‘horcrux’ and the guess that the two were related. He glanced away from Avery, which prompted a mocking chuckle from Harry and then a wild suspicion. “You had a piece of Voldemort’s soul in you?” he said, transferring his gaze to Harry. “But then why would Voldemort allow us to kill you?”

“He wasn’t exactly _trying_ to put one in me, if what everyone’s always said is right.” Black irony was uppermost in Potter’s voice, but there was detectable betrayal in it as well. That observation was further reinforced by how he made Avery climb backwards off the bed and clumsily kneel on the floor.

Potter’s hand was bloody to the wrist, and from his fingertips flowed thin, shimmering red lines that disappeared somewhere in Avery’s front. When he saw it, Severus’ eyes widened and he barely choked down his surprised exclamation. He unconsciously drew up his knees and pressed back into the table-leg so he rocked the whole piece of furniture, pulling Lucius with him.

“Anyway, doesn’t everyone wish they could get rid of their worse parts? I read a book about that, once-- _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_.” A trace of nostalgia entered Potter’s voice, and his expression softened as he remembered. Then he shook his head—and shook his hand as well, so Avery shuddered so hard he nearly fell over. “I bet that was based on fact: some wizard went nuts and terrorized London. Seems to be pretty common. After all, fucking Voldemort tried to shove what he thought were his ‘Mudblood’ bits in me.”

“But Voldemort would still wish to keep as many parts of himself out of Lucifer’s hands as possible. If what you say is true,” Severus carefully replied.

“‘If what you say is true,’” Harry jeered. His lip curled and he pulled at the threads so Avery tried to raise his dislocated arm without any aid from his whole one. “What’s so damned hard to believe? That your master’s got piss-poor forward planning sometimes? Or that Lucifer’s real?”

His voice was starting to rise, and with it were the shadows slithering around the edges of the room. Lucius noted that some of them were flickering his way and desperately tried to think of a way to placate Potter. “Wizards are notoriously irreligious, since we know of ways to reproduce miracles with magic—”

Avery suddenly flopped onto his back. His face twisted and his mouth worked as if he’d somewhat forgotten how to work his jaw. It abruptly snapped shut, then slowly opened. He tipped his head back so when he spoke, he did so to Severus and Lucius. His voice was raspy and constricted; his eyes were screaming that he didn’t want to speak. “But you believe in unicorns and werewolves and Dark Lords. You believe in demons. Maybe Lucifer’s just a very, very old Dark Lord that decided to take over his own realm instead of this one,” Avery said. “Maybe Voldemort’s just a stupid git when it comes to me.”

The last word was barely out of Avery’s mouth before a series of spasms took him, starting out as trembling and quickly working up to full _grand mal_ seizures. He choked out muffled shouts through the red-tinged foam that frothed up through his mouth and nose, and up till the very last moment, his eyes stayed on Severus as if they were locked there.

Severus was naturally sallow, but by now his face was a bloodless ashen shade. He swallowed noticeably before he spoke again to Potter, and didn’t look away from Avery’s corpse. “Harry, you died before you knew—”

“Story of my goddamned life. I was protected so I didn’t know this till…I should’ve been told this before, but…well, I don’t give a shit anymore, Snape.” Potter pushed himself off the bed and stepped over Avery to kneel beside one of the bedposts, where a large pool of shadows had collected. He pushed his hand into them, their blackness rising sluggishly over his wrist like tar, then pulled it out to show clean skin. “That was then, when I was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. Except he died, and now I’m here to strip the rest of Voldemort’s soul from this earth, and I don’t care about anything but that. You’re going to help me.”

“And if we resist, you’ll do with us like you did with Avery?” Lucius asked. He had to pause and wet his lips halfway through because they were too dry.

Before he could blink, Harry was suddenly in front of him, shoving between Lucius’ knees to lean dangerously close. His jaw had been seized in a hard grip, and Potter used the hold to push Lucius’ head to the side so he could murmur nearly against the cuts on Lucius’ jaw. Lucius glanced at Severus, saw the flare of surprise mixed with hot, vengeful satisfaction, and consequently had no idea at which of them he was snarling more.

“But that’s messy. And obvious, isn’t it?” Harry whispered, breath hot and thick on Lucius’ skin. When Lucius flinched, Potter curled his thumbnail to break open the scabs along the side of Lucius’ chin. “Hell, easier to tell what’s going on than if I used _Imperio_.”

Why he wasn’t, when he obviously still could use regular wizard-magic, was a question to which Lucius’ reason clung for sanity’s sake. Potter had limitations, but they were according to no system of magic with which Lucius was familiar. Research might be helpful in elucidating them, but that would require much time and privacy, neither of which Lucius was going to have. He’d have to try and deduce it by observation, it appeared. He’d known that to begin with, but the more he watched, the more he desperately wished there was some other way to go about it.

“What are you asking for?” Severus was saying, tone edgy.

For good reason, because Potter abruptly released Lucius and switched to Severus, who regained all his color and then had a surplus when Potter straddled him. His attempt to speak was quickly choked off; Harry yanked up Severus’ chin so he whispered to Severus’ throat, his lips peeled back so his teeth were nearly catching the skin. “Nothing you haven’t done before. Voldemort has pieces of his soul hidden in horcruxes—you can look that up yourself. With your library and Malfoy’s, it shouldn’t take you too long. I need to know where those are. And then I need you to bring them to me, or take me to them.”

Potter tipped his head this way and that as he talked, moving like a cobra weaving in place, waiting to strike. His free hand came to rest on Severus’ chest, then slowly slid down till the folds of Severus’ robes and his jacket hid what it was doing. But Lucius could guess from putting together his experience and Severus’ hitching breath.

“You’re good at that. But don’t think you’re playing double-spy anymore—you’re _mine_ ,” Harry hissed. Then he dove in and sank his teeth into the side of Severus’ jaw; Severus started to curse and toss his head, but Potter’s arm flexed and Severus went very still. A moment later, Potter withdrew with blood on his lips and more smeared over Severus’ throat and cheek. He lazily swiped the stuff off his mouth with his tongue, which was thin and blackish. The droplets on Severus’ throat, Potter scraped off with his hand and fed to the shadows. “But I’m not so trusting in your abilities as Dumbledore was. Which is why Lucius will be acting as decoy—he’ll be trying to find out the same things, but Voldemort will watch him instead of you.”

“That’s generous of you.” Severus’ eyes darted around for several seconds before he glued his gaze to the ceiling. His voice was no longer a controlled monotone; the lack of emotion in it was from shock.

“Why would Voldemort watch me?” Lucius blurted out. He found himself flinching even before Harry turned to look at him.

Harry let go of Severus’ jaw, but instead of rising and walking over to Lucius, he let himself sprawl across the intervening space. He laid his chin on Lucius’ thigh, grinning humorlessly. “Because you reek of me right now, and you’re going to keep reeking of me. I’ll clean Snape up, and you’ll both tell Voldemort that I’m here and I surprised you—” he rolled over and stroked the long slash over Lucius’ chest “—but he’s going to think you were willing. And if Voldemort had teacher’s pets, you’d be it. Man, I wish I could see his face.”

Lucius’ stomach roiled, and for a wild moment he nearly begged Potter to take him along instead of leaving him to Voldemort’s mercies. Whatever else Potter had learned in hell, it’d included an exquisite understanding of betrayal: Voldemort would have found nothing too surprising about Severus turning coat again—if indeed he’d ever stopped in the first place—but he would be taken off-guard, with all the fresh swells of hatred that entailed, by Lucius doing the same. That had been one of the reasons Lucius so far had kept from thinking seriously about doing something to ease his discontent with the world Voldemort had created.

“Then again, your face right now isn’t half-bad. Give me something nice to think about while I make my other stops for tonight,” Harry said. He sat up and waved his hand over a flinching Severus; nothing notable happened except that the bitemark on Severus’ jaw healed, but Lucius was sure that Potter had just wiped Severus of all other significant traces as well. “I’ll be in touch. Got your blood, so you can be sure of that.”

He rolled to his feet and stood, then sauntered insolently towards the door. He couldn’t be merely walking out.

“He’s walking out on us.” Severus shook himself, then wrenched at his arms. The bonds predictably didn’t give, but the intensity of frustration in Severus’ snarl was unexpected. “The bloody little—”

“He’s as tall as you are now,” Lucius snapped. His voice was shaky. He thought that was excusable, given that he was coated in traces of Potter’s…handling, with only dead Avery and marginally cooperative Severus for company. Damn it—he was _not_ being found like this. He looked around and spotted his cane lying just within reach.

Instead of stretching his leg out to push it nearer, Lucius found himself freezing in place. But no mocking voice came, nor invisible torturer, and at last he managed to will himself into rolling the cane towards him. Even then, he flinched as he murmured the words to activate the cane’s recollecting spell, and almost expected Potter to materialize out of nowhere and snatch his wand in mid-flight.

No such thing happened, and Lucius was able to summon his wand to his cane, then unsnap it and use it to free himself and Severus without any problem. Then he sat down again and stared at his hands. They refused to cease trembling.

“He told you something else,” Severus abruptly said. He grabbed the edge of the table and used it to pull himself into a standing position. Then he slapped the table and walked stiffly to the desk, where he used his wand to activate a Catacomb-wide alert. “Damn it, Lucius. What else did he say? How did he come back?”

“Taking your role in this so easily, aren’t you? He was right about that. He—” Lucius watched his hands suddenly clamp around his cane. “He said he was going after Draco. Merlin. Severus, I have—”

“You’re not going anywhere!” Severus snapped, whirling about. His wand was aimed squarely at Lucius’ eyes. “You’re supposed to attract Voldemort’s suspicions, not confirm them. If you do, then _he’ll_ be the one to kill you and what Potter does won’t matter!”

Perhaps Lucius could see the sense in that, but nevertheless it was hard to keep himself from hexing Severus to Hogwarts’ ruins and back. He struggled upright and pulled at his clothing, trying to get himself in some order. “And what about my son? Your godson?”

Severus compressed his lips. He didn’t meet Lucius’ eyes for a moment, but when he did, his gaze was steady and cold. He picked up Lucius’ robes from the chair on which they’d been placed and dispassionately helped Lucius tidy himself. “Then your acting had better be convincing, because Voldemort dislikes Draco anyway. We’ll convince him that Potter’s still on the attack, and then while Voldemort’s sending everyone out, one of us can send a message to Draco.”

“He’s in London now. I’ll send him home—Narcissa may be in one of her ‘moods’ but she’ll protect him,” Lucius said. He took comfort in the quick decisions, but it was a shallow feeling; he couldn’t delude himself into thinking that he’d regained control in the least. “Well, it’ll be pleasant to have your considerable skills at deception favor me and mine for once.”

“Potter said you’re my decoy, therefore I would think the burden lies on you now,” Severus archly replied. “I don’t imagine he’ll be pleased to find you shirking your assignment.”

Lucius gave his robes a last yank, their cleaning and healing spells doing their best to eradicate Potter’s marks. He rubbed at his cut chin, then remembered and angrily yanked the cord out of his hair. “If you think Potter is _anything_ like Voldemort, or Dumbledore, then I pity _you_ for thinking he could be manipulated the same way.”

He turned on his heel and went out to greet the first arrivals. His hands were still shaking, and deep inside he was pathetically grateful that Potter had left him his cane. Holding it covered up some of his nerves; he hoped Draco had listened to him for once and stayed in the townhouse. He hoped…he shook his head and concentrated on more essential thoughts.

* * *

Draco was in the middle of tossing back another glass of whiskey when he heard someone pressing the doorbell. At least, he assumed it was the doorbell. He’d been told it had been kept operational in case any Muggles wandered up to the front—making things Unplottable at this point was no longer a viable option—but he’d never heard it.

He’d never had to deal with a soliciting Muggle either, and at first he slid lower down the couch, hoping that merely ignoring the matter would make it go away. But the bell kept ringing and ringing, and eventually it penetrated Draco’s fogged mind that someone standing on the doorstep for that long would attract unwanted attention. Damn.

He levered himself up using the sofa arm, but apparently someone had hexed the furniture because it moved when he was halfway to standing and he nearly fell on his face. His flailing arm caught an armchair, and that saved him. Staggering onward and ho, Draco irritably, confusedly thought. He had no idea who he was misquoting and didn’t care.

The narrowness and acute angles of the hallway caused him some trouble, but he managed to beat them out of the way and finally make it to the door. He waited for the door to say who it was, then remembered the no-magic rule and snapped off the locks. Kept the chain on, after muddling through all the warnings he’d been given, and opened the door a crack.

The next moment, Draco was fear-sobered and flat against the opposite wall, hiccupping little noises of terror. He was aware that he sounded like a complete prat, but that was about par for everyone’s expectations of him, wasn’t it? And anyway, he _was_ terrified. He was utterly flattened.

He was watching a finger carefully lift the chain from the door, and his vision was shaking because he was shaking, Draco realized. “Potter?”

The door swung open. A tall, thin man dressed in black casual Muggle clothes leaned against one side of the doorway, his hands shoved beneath his shirt-tails and into his trouser-pockets. He had cracked glasses, green eyes, and an incredible resemblance to the dead Harry Potter except for the fact that he was smirking.

“Draco,” fake-Harry said. He stopped smirking and lifted one hand in an ironic wave. “Invite me in, why don’t you?”

“My father _killed_ you,” Draco breathed. His head was swimming and he didn’t quite think he would be able to stand any time soon. He scrabbled in his pocket, looking for something. His wand, perhaps. Instead he came up with cigarettes, which seemed a much better idea. He shakily lit one and sucked hard on it, clawing for every bit of nicotine he could. “You’re dead.”

Fake-Harry snorted and took his other hand out of his pocket to shove the hair out of his face. His old lightning-shaped scar was briefly visible and suddenly Draco was coldly, unshakably certain that this was the real Harry.

“Well.” He had to stop and take another hit off his cigarette. His knees slowly gave way till he was sitting on the floor. “I suppose if Voldemort can do it, so can you.”

“You know, I really hate how everything I do gets shadowed by him,” Harry said in a conversational tone. He glanced up and about with the kind of lazy assurance he’d never had back in school; there he’d been always on edge, a touch of the hunted in his hysteria. This version of him seemed as if he didn’t know what the meaning of hysteria was.

It reminded Draco a good deal of his father.

“Nice house.” Harry flicked his eyes over the cracked wood of the staircase, the damp spots on the wallpaper. His gaze dropped to Draco, lingering over Draco’s tie in a way that made Draco convulsively loosen it. “And clothes. Never would’ve figured you for the bohemian type. Seeing as that’s decidedly _Mudblood_ and all.”

Draco shrugged. His cigarette was nearly gone and he took a moment—several, actually, to light a new one. He burned his finger. “It’s a decent way to make sure my father keeps his distance.”

“Even purebloods have to have their moment of teenage rebellion?” offered Harry. He raised one arm and leaned it on the doorframe so he could tap his fingers against the wood. It sounded like so many axes thudding into executioners’ blocks. “And here I thought you and your father—”

“You’ve been dead—or wherever you were—for two years. What do you know about how things stand between my father and me?” Draco snapped. A tiny part of him was shouting that he was an idiot, but the greater part of him simply found the whole situation too surreal. Here was Harry Potter, magically resurrected, and he was the same condescending, ignorant bastard as always. “You know, it’s not—things weren’t like—oh, fuck it. You wouldn’t know.”

A tiny furrow appeared between Harry’s brows, and he shifted his weight so though he was three yards away, he seemed to loom over Draco. “Enlighten me, then.”

“Oh, why not? Come in, have a scotch, and listen to me whine about how Voldemort’s treated me like a pretty footstool since I botched my attempt to kill Dumbledore.” Draco suddenly found the energy to wrench himself to his feet. He even had enough surplus to absently wave Harry in over his shoulder.

The burst of energy gave out before he’d managed to lurch all the way back to the sofa, but by then he’d built up enough momentum to get him the rest of the way. Perhaps his landing wouldn’t be terribly graceful, but he was well and truly sick of keeping up appearances. “And my father’s kept me alive, but obviously it’s just till he can get around to getting the next generation out of me. He never comes around now unless it’s to tell me to ‘make something of myself,’ and Mother—Merlin, Mother’s even worse. Always talking about what she’s done for me and—Merlin!”

Harry stood his ground while Draco recoiled from his sudden appearance before him, then tripped and fell on his arse. “Christ. You’re drunk as a lord,” Harry said. He prodded Draco’s side with his foot. “Oh, sorry, that’s not quite the appropriate saying for your current status, is it? I could say I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

Fingers thrust into Draco’s hair, then closed tight before he could do so much as turn around to face Harry. They dragged his head back so the cartilage between the bones of his spine popped, each one a unique bubble of pain. And Harry kept dragging them back so Draco thought he could feel the bones themselves begin to crack.

The whisper in Draco’s ear was hot and silky, and made him jerk so he nearly broke his own neck. “At least your father put up—”

“ _Harry_?”

Suddenly Draco was free and falling, what should’ve been his last gasp choking back down his throat. He barely got his arms up in time to break his fall, and it was a long handful of seconds before he could push himself over to look.

He’d forgotten. Weasley had been due to show, and Draco had been so busy getting himself drunk in preparation that he’d forgotten about why he was pouring whiskey down his throat. Now here he was on the floor, while Fred stood in the doorway gaping and Harry made like a Druidical bluestone.

“Jesus,” Fred finally said. He was swaying a little, as if he had as much alcohol in him as Draco did. “I thought George was hallucinating. Him and—”

“It’s in the corner cabinet, as usual,” Draco brusquely interrupted. He got hold of the coffee-table and hauled himself up onto his knees. “Your sister sends her regards, as usual. And you need to leave now, as usual.”

Harry finally moved: he glanced down at Draco with what could have been gratitude, if that emotion wasn’t entirely within the realm of improbability. “You’re keeping troublesome company, Draco. As usual.”

As if it was even needed to drive home the point, the Dark Mark on Draco’s arm began to burn. He generally got echoes—if he felt it at all, since Voldemort chose to keep him farther out of the loop than even Goyle—but this time, it was a full-strength summoning. Draco clapped his hand over his arm and gritted his teeth. He looked up in time to see a curiously interested expression on Harry’s face and a tense one on Fred’s.

“Get moving, Weasley.” Draco flapped his hand at the slow bastard and instantly regretted it when that exacerbated the flaring of the Mark.

“I’m not here,” Harry said quietly. He nodded towards the cabinet and Fred finally, jerkily moved towards it, though not without multiple glances back at Harry. Typical. All Draco’s hard work, and all Harry had to do was…

Fred slipped the packet into his sleeve and shut the cabinet, then hurried towards the stairs. Then he stopped and looked back. “Harry—”

“ _Go_.” Harry took a step forward and suddenly—he was transformed. That was the only word for it, really: the shadows in the room surged forward and hooded him, but that only seemed to bring forth his presence instead of shrouding it. His eyes were glowing red, and for a long moment, he looked like he might kill Weasley.

Of course, the bloody idiot lingered a moment longer anyway before he rushed off with not a concerned look towards Draco. Bloody, bloody typical.

The look on Harry’s face, however, was a study in a side Draco had never suspected the thickheaded, singleminded git might have. It was a shame Harry got himself under control before Draco could really begin to examine it; Harry drew a deep breath and gracefully folded himself into a sitting position besides Draco. He flipped his shirt-tails out of the way before waving his hand towards Draco, and suddenly Draco was sober in truth and not merely in fear.

Then the bastard nicked one of his cigarettes. “You’re helping the resistance,” Harry observed.

“And you’re not human. Now, anyway.” The burning Mark was really starting to wear on Draco now that he didn’t have the comforting blanket of booze to interpose between him and it. He sank back against the table and shakily fumbled out a cig for himself. “What did you do? What the hell’s got Voldemort so worked up that he’d be calling on _me_?”

“Happy about that?” Smoking suited this new Harry in a disturbing way; he seemed to draw vigor from the smoke instead of being obscured in it like a normal person. It didn’t help that he still had a group of long, snake-like shadows toying about his feet.

Draco smoked half the cigarette in two breaths. “No. You know something—Voldemort is right. I’m not cut out for his sort of campaign. Call me a coward or whatever you will, but I’d be perfectly happy with schoolyard tormenting. In a perfect world, after I’d graduated from Hogwarts, I would’ve gone to live in a nice crystal bubble where I just didn’t have to _see_ Mudbloods.”

“At this point, I’d say it’s a pity that didn’t work out,” Harry said, sounding almost meditative. Then he reached over and stabbed out his cigarette on the ashtray on the table. “I’ll be around, Draco. My regards to your father.”

Then he was gone. While Draco was turning and twisting about to look for him—utterly pointless—something tapped at the window. He got up and let in one of his father’s auxiliary owls, who was so worked up that it took him a good five minutes to calm her down and get her to release the note she carried. In that time, Voldemort’s summonings gradually died away; Draco was grateful for that, since he didn’t think the lingering effects of the whiskey could carry him through that meeting as it had through the one he’d just had with Potter. It probably had just been a general summons, so he could sneak in late.

His father’s note consisted of three words: _Draco. Go home._

Draco stared at it for a good few moments while his sluggish mind scraped off enough rust to finally begin putting together this uncharacteristic curtness with the few words Harry had dropped. He turned around and stared hard at the ashtray, where Harry’s butt was still sending up a thin trail of smoke.

After a second, Draco put out his own butt next to it, and then set fire to the note. He wasn’t going home. He was going to see Ginny Weasley.


	4. Broken Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Malfoys, father and son, reassess certain life choices.

“I was angry with my foe:  
I told it not. My wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,  
Night and morning with my tears”  
\--“The Poison Tree,” William Blake

* * *

Ginny was between visitors when Draco finally made his way into the Catacombs. Normally his name was enough to carry him through, albeit with a good deal of sneering, but tonight Voldemort’s Ministry was in an uproar from the highest officials down to the janitorial staff, which was mainly composed of enslaved resisters. Draco saw Macnair kicking a crumpled, whimpering body down a flight of stairs while he shouted orders to a group of half-dressed shock troops; when he ducked into a side-hall, he glimpsed Snape agitatedly discussing something with a sneering Pettigew.

He ducked into Ginny’s rooms with something close to relief, then locked the door behind him.

“Draco?” came a startled gasp from the sumptuous bed. At first all he could see was a corner of brilliant green, but then Ginny slipped from behind the gauzy curtains and came towards him. She was done up like an artfully disheveled geisha, which meant she’d probably been due for a visit from his father.

He gave a mental sneer in that direction, ignored how it was tinged with more than a little hysteria, and listened for his father’s call. When it didn’t come, he relaxed; he had a while before his father noticed his disobedience. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. All of a sudden everything was just—” She waved a hand towards the hall, which echoed with muffled shouts, thuds and the occasional scream. Her other hand pulled and twisted at the delicate golden collar about her neck, which prevented her from ever venturing beyond the Catacomb walls. It kept her from touching anyone else’s wands as well; her own was locked somewhere even Draco didn’t know about. “Something with your father, I think. I heard Macnair gloating about him being out of the Dark Lord’s favor, and he was supposed to be here hours ago but he missed his appointment.”

Her prettily-painted mouth wrenched with hatred as she said ‘Dark Lord,’ and a tiny trace of pleasure crept into her voice as she talked about Lucius. Once upon a time, Draco would have done more than slapped her for that, but nowadays, he had to restrain himself from vigorously nodding his agreement.

“And Avery’s dead,” Ginny added, eyes lighting up with violent satisfaction. The beringed hand she had wrapped around her collar twisted so hard that Draco heard the screech of metal on metal. “I’ll never have to have that bastard between my legs again.”

Avery never had been a favorite of Draco’s either, and when Draco had permanently lost favor in the Dark Lord’s eyes, the other man hadn’t wasted a moment in digging knives into the wound. Good riddance, then.

As if she was reading his mind, Ginny put her hand on Draco’s arm and leaned very close. She glanced about, apparently decided everyone would be too busy to bother listening in, and then dropped her courtesan’s mask. “How is he?”

“He took it. He’s gone and—Ginny, Harry Potter is back from the dead.” Draco wasn’t quite so sanguine and dropped his arms around her neck, roughly pulling her up against him. He might be disgraced, but after nearly a year of secret double-crossing, he still wasn’t under suspicion of being a traitor and he needed that bit of protection for a little while longer. “But he’s not—he’s not human, and he’s not the Harry that died,” he murmured, kissing up the side of her neck.

She’d stiffened the moment he had said that name, and when she finally remembered her part in keeping up the act, her movements were obviously mechanical. Hopefully if anyone was spying, they’d take it as a foolish burst of defiance on her part. “Are any of us the same? Where is he?”

“Not coming to see you,” Draco snapped beneath his breath. He bit Ginny hard enough so that he could see the redness through her make-up when he lifted his head. When she winced, he grabbed her arm and twisted it up high behind her back. “Grow up, damn it. He’s—he’s gone _dark_.”

Ginny jerked herself back and stared up at Draco with the injured infuriation that made her so popular among the higher echelon. She’d be a rebel till someone finally killed her, and it made her a very hot bedmate. “What are you doing here?” she loudly said.

“Oh, I thought I’d try what has my father—” the word spat itself out without nearly as much vitriol as Draco wished he could put into it “—so damn fascinated.”

He yanked her back to him, and the meeting of their mouths was a battle to see who could be more filled with frustrated rage and wounded psyche. For a moment, it overwhelmed him.

Then his newfound sobriety caught up with him and Draco wrenched himself off, returning to his assault on her neck. He raked his nails through her hair till all the pins and baubles in it came popping off and clattered to the ground. “I’m leaving, Ginny. Harry’s crazy and he knows I’m a spy, and I don’t trust him not to let that slip to someone.”

She curled her free hand around his neck and gouged at him with her nails. “But what about—”

“Oh, he’s still taking care of Voldemort. He can do that without me risking my neck to sneak out information, believe me,” Draco snarled. He let go of her arm, took hold of both sides of her collar, and ripped them down her shoulders. “Are you coming?”

Her nails removed themselves from his flesh, and while he buried his face in her breasts, Ginny stood stockstill. Eventually she got down to his level with kimono hiked up, and proceeded to climb onto his prick with all the viciousness of a she-wolf. “You don’t have to bring me with you. They know you’re helping—they trust—”

“Then they’re idiots, because I’m not and never was doing this because I find your arguments more convincing,” Draco hissed to her throat. He gripped her buttocks and made her move faster.

“They just can put you out of your misery sooner than Voldemort.” Perceptive girl. She grabbed onto his shoulders and rolled her hips up into his hands, tossing her head back before ducking to savage his lip. “No, I’m not. If Harry’s back and working against Voldemort, then he’ll still need spies. Maybe you’re too afraid to stay, but I’m not. Not if that’s what it takes.”

Draco started to laugh, but his climax turned it into a strangled shout. That was more fitting, anyway. “You stupid, stupid girl,” he gasped. He took back his earlier compliment. “He doesn’t _need_ you, believe me.”

Instead of listening, she shoved herself down a last time and screeched like a banshee. Her lipstick was smeared over her cheek like someone had taken a knife to her mouth, and her eyes glittered blindly at the ceiling. He hadn’t expected her to listen, anyway, but it still stung. No one ever listened to him. Not even a brainless whore who thought she was some great tragic heroine.

* * *

Well, that had been an utterly pointless meeting, and if Draco could sort out the reason he’d tried from the seething tangle of resentments and hatreds and plain despair that currently made up his mind, he would’ve burned it out of himself. Instead he went to see his father. Apparently visits from not-so-dead but very inhuman former adversaries left him with the need to make bad situations even worse.

His father was confined to his rooms, ostensibly because he was busy plotting strategy, but Draco could read triumphant looks and sidelong sneers as well as, if not better, than anyone. The open contempt extended to Draco as well, and for once he was grateful that nobody in Voldemort’s organization seemed to think he was capable of anything. He got into Lucius’ chambers without a single challenge. 

“Father—” Draco began.

Lucius had been bent over his desk, frantically rummaging through papers and books, but when Draco spoke, he whipped about and stared. So did Draco, because his father was hollow-eyed and pale, and looked like Ginny tended to after a session with Macnair. “ _Draco_ ,” Lucius breathed.

For nearly a minute after that, he merely stared at Draco as if…as if…except they were far too gone for that. Draco gave himself a shake and carefully avoided looking at the scratches and bruises and bites on his father’s skin. He gazed for a while at Lucius’ hands, but how his father clutched his cane to himself was still too telling, and finally Draco had to settle for watching the far wall. “What’s going on?”

“I sent you a message. Go directly to the manor and—” Already his father was returning to the business at hand, dismissing his son as if Draco were nothing more than a servant.

“I got the damned message. If I’ve got to put up with mother, I’d like to know why,” Draco snapped. A long, long time ago, he would have jumped at the chance to go home and be pampered and cosseted by his mother. Long ago, before she’d made the bargain with Snape that had saved Draco’s life—or so she told it, and ever since she’d never ceased to take out on Draco her hatred of being in debt to Snape.

A too-hasty brush of the hand sent a pile of scrolls cascading from the desk, but Lucius made no attempt to pick them up. Instead he called up yet more books, some Draco knew only as being from the section of their library that they still weren’t allowed to touch, and feverishly paged through them. “Goddamn it, Draco. Do what I say and don’t argue.”

Draco blinked. Normally his father would have drawn himself up and coldly shredded Draco’s self-esteem, or have simply pointed his wand and sent Draco out of there without any further debate. In comparison, this reaction was almost stunning in its weakness. “Why not? Can’t I have an opinion about what’s to be done with me?”

“No.” Lucius stopped at something and smoothed down the page with a trembling hand. He angrily slapped his fingers against the book, as if that would help.

After a while, he realized Draco hadn’t left and slowly turned about with a little of his old chilling presence. But even if he’d been in top form, it wouldn’t have mattered because Draco was completely, utterly at the end of his rope. For two years he’d seen Voldemort mismanage his victory and turn the world into a living hell. Watched where he was, shoved to the margin where only spying for the resistance had given him any importance to anyone. And then _Harry Potter_ had shown up—Harry had showed up not dead and clearly in tune with dark forces beyond anyone’s immediate understanding, and he’d obviously shown up to maim and kill, but instead he’d…spared Draco. Possibly the worst insult of all.

“Draco, must you be so difficult? And now of all times? I’m trying to look out for your well-being,” Lucius said. He sounded almost plaintive, but there was enough irritation in his eyes and anger in his voice to disabuse Draco of any inclinations towards sympathy. “Listen to me, and—”

“And what? All will be well? Excuse me if I find that hard to believe now.” Draco snapped out a cigarette and lit up. He raised an eyebrow at his father’s disapproving look: of course Lucius hated anything Muggle, and especially anything he considered detrimental to their appearance as the purest of the pure.

Surprisingly, that look crumbled a moment later and Lucius actually appeared to be trying for persuasive instead of commanding. “I do have your best interests at heart,” he said in a low tone. “You used to believe me when I said that. I thought I raised you to believe in the Malfoy family.”

Something twisted in Draco’s chest. He took a deep drag and the nicotine loosened it right up. “Well, that was then, and a lot’s gone on since. You also brought me up to be full of spite and pride. And I’m good at those. If nothing else, I’m good at those.”

His father pressed his lips together, then opened his mouth and took a sharp breath, as if he were about to launch into another tirade. Then he flinched and his hand made an aborted move towards his arm, where the Mark was. Real fear crossed his face.

“Harry Potter,” Draco abruptly said. It wasn’t a finished thought, so he didn’t say the rest.

Just as well, because his father’s violent reaction to that was enough: Lucius recoiled, knocking two heavy books onto the floor where they snarled and flapped their displeasure. He went even whiter and the hand he was using to hold his hand convulsed so the cane-end rattled against the desk-leg. “Why did you say that name?” he hissed.

Draco shrugged. He ashed his cigarette in an expensive urn that stood near the door, and his father didn’t call him on it. “I’m going, Father. Have a nice life.”

He’d already turned when Lucius called out: “Draco—”

He didn’t want to turn, but the silence that followed was so unbearably tense that Draco didn’t dare be the one to snap it. Much as he wanted out of this infernal closed cycle, he didn’t want to get out here, in the damp, revolting ancient catacombs where Voldemort had chosen to make his headquarters, as if they still had something to hide. Draco glanced over his shoulder.

His father’s face was…open, Draco thought. Guessed, because he’d never seen any expression like that on his father before. Open and raw and almost mere human.

“You are my son,” Lucius said, voice a bit thick like he’d been imbibing.

“Then no wonder I turned out so badly, since that’s all I ever was,” Draco retorted. He didn’t stay to see his father’s reaction to _that_. “Bye, father.”

No one stopped him on his way out. As soon as he was clear of the Catacombs and on an empty street, he Apparated himself directly into the nearest resistance hideout. 

It was cramped and damp and miserable, but it didn’t pretend to be otherwise. A Weasley was leaning over a table full of maps, and from the sofa, gaunt-cheeked Lupin was slowly rising.

“Potter’s not dead anymore, and I’ve been compromised. Ginny’s sticking around to keep on spying so you’ll have to find an alternate for me if you want to keep in touch with her,” Draco said oh-so-casually. He sat down in the nearest chair and tapped the ash from his cigarette. “Merlin, I’m thirsty. Is there any decent wine in this place?”

* * *

The edge of Voldemort’s robes was heavily ornamented with rich brocade and jewels that weighed it down as he swept agitatedly about the room. It skittered and scraped against the floorstones so that Lucius always had to keep one eye fixed on it; the ornamentation had drawn blood from more than one cheek in the past.

“Did he mention anything else?” Voldemort finally said.

“No, my lord. Only horcruxes and nonsense about Lucifer.” Severus was pressed so close to the floor that Lucius, also prostrated, could make out only the blanch-white curve of one ear and nothing of the other man’s face. “However he was able to return, it seems the process has left him addled in the head.”

Voldemort stopped almost at the extreme end of the room, drawing himself up so he seemed like a black spike protruding from the floor. His robes rustled as he lifted a hand to his face, but what he did with it, Lucius had no idea. And Lucius currently had no energy to spare in speculations, as then came the chilly probing of the Dark Lord at his mind. It was all he could do to force his fingers to remain lying flat and to keep his breath steady. He did his damnedest to project a sense of confusion, hurt, and complete trust in Voldemort.

The first two weren’t hard at all. He’d gotten the summons just after Draco had stormed out, and he hadn’t been able to see where his son had went before he’d had to come here. His body still hadn’t been healed from Potter’s assault, and he could smell the bastard on his skin.

“So you don’t believe what he told you.” After a moment, Voldemort came back across the room. Nagini was sleeping coiled half-on and half-off a table that he passed; Voldemort went only two steps before he turned back and stroked her back. It was uncharacteristic of him to show any sign of indecisiveness. “Somehow I doubt that. His explanation would appeal to your sense of retribution, Severus.”

“My lord?” Whatever else he was, Severus certainly was a skilled actor. His question included exactly the right proportions of bewilderment and fear.

“I cannot,” Voldemort said in a deliberate voice, “Find a trace of Potter within the Catacombs, save for what I can sense on you two and on Avery’s corpse. If not for those, I’d have to believe that two of my best Death-Eaters have lost their minds.”

Lucius almost protested, but he recognized barely in time that the pause was meant to give them time to stew in their fright, not to invite discussion. He dropped his gaze.

For several moments it was silent. Then a low, rustling scratchy sound filled the air: Voldemort was caressing Nagini’s head. “However, you are not, and Potter once again poses a danger. An _unknown_ danger to hear you two, though I expect you will bend all your efforts to elucidating his mysteries.”

“Yes, my lord,” Lucius and Severus both murmured. The sidelong glance Severus gave Lucius indicated that the irony of the exchange hadn’t been lost on him.

“In the meantime, Potter has to be neutralized before the resistance regains their figurehead,” Voldemort went on. His tone was almost musing.

After some hesitation, Lucius thought it’d look better on him to offer some information. Harry could plot all he wanted, but if he expected Lucius to lie down and tamely submit to his wishes, he was still nothing more than a hotheaded youth. “Potter doesn’t seem interested in joining up with the resistance, my lord. He made a point of repudiating them in the church.”

“And he made a point of defying _me_ ,” Voldemort hissed, whipping around. His robe-edge came within a hair of slicing open Lucius’ cheek, and before Lucius had finished recoiling, his foot was wedged beneath Lucius’ chin. “He broke into my Ministry, and of the three high-ranking officials he encountered, he slaughtered one, disarmed the second and apparently expressed a _great_ interest in the third.”

Voldemort’s red eyes burned deep into Lucius’ mind, prodding and testing without a modicum of finesse. Then he suddenly withdrew, mouth twisted in disgust, and carelessly kicked Lucius aside with his foot before returning to Nagini. The blow carried little physical force, but nevertheless Lucius couldn’t prevent himself from drawing his next breath so sharply he felt it lacerate his throat. “I assure you, my lord—Potter will—”

“Did he seem open to negotiations of any sort?” As suddenly as Voldemort’s temper had flared, it chilled. He held out his hand a foot above the table and watched Nagini sluggishly lift her head to it with a curiously detached demeanor. “It makes no difference whether he wishes to support the resistance—though that is an interesting development—as long as those recalcitrants can convince others that he is. Wouldn’t you agree, Lucius?”

Lucius willed himself not to grind his teeth. Apparently Potter had a better reading of Voldemort’s eccentricities than anyone had suspected. “Yes, my lord.”

“I need him inactive till he can be dealt with in a permanent fashion. So…” Head tilted, Voldemort meditatively stroked the underside of Nagini’s head. Her tongue flickered out almost to his mouth, and his eyelids dropped like those of a great beast chewing contentedly over its latest meal. “The way he killed Avery…very messy. Not Gryffindor at all.”

“He always was a hot-tempered boy,” Severus said.

Voldemort abruptly whirled to look down at him, but made no move forward. The movement of Voldemort’s fingers on Nagini slowed, then ceased altogether. “But ridiculously attached to the morals his guardians spoon-fed him. I don’t remember him ever being so meticulously vicious before. Or expressing interest in men before.”

His gaze swept purposefully over Lucius, who swallowed hard and pushed himself up on numb arms. Perhaps this would get him _Crucio_ ’d for the rest of the night, but he had to at least try and forestall what was obviously on Voldemort’s mind. He had a little pride left, and it was essential that he keep it. “My lord, I doubt interest had much to do with it. Potter was after revenge against those that had hurt him before, in whatever way he believed would injure them worst.”

That red gaze looked expressionlessly into Lucius’ eyes. “There is truth in that. Potter’s motivations now appear to be rooted in personal reasons, then?”

“They generally were before, my lord.” Severus almost glanced in Lucius’ direction. “But he never was a natural grudge-holder. I don’t believe he’d strike twice at the same target, at least—”

“At least in regards to you, though you got off rather lightly compared to Lucius,” Voldemort dryly said. Now it was Severus’ turn to go pale and stiff as Voldemort eyed him. “Severus. I understand you and Pettigew divided what possessions of Sirius Black’s fell into our hands.”

A curt nod and a murmured ‘by your grace’ were Severus’ only answer.

“Pettigew destroyed his share in a fit of delayed resentment, the fool.” Behind Voldemort, Nagini slowly coiled herself back down. He lowered his hand to rest on her back, but did not look away from Severus. “Have you been so foolish?”

So much blood drained from Severus’ face that his skin appeared thin and dry as very old parchment. He began to reply, but had to stop and moisten his lips before he could produce any noises. “I can give you a complete catalog within the hour, my lord.”

“Do so. As for you, Lucius…Potter may not be interested in revisiting you. Or he may. I cherish you highly and so I’d be a fool to allow you to continue in such vulnerable surroundings. You will retire to Malfoy Manor immediately.” Voldemort drew one nail along Nagini’s back to produce a bone-shivering rasp. “Rookwood will temporarily take on your administrative duties here, but I’ll not keep you idle, you may rest assured. Spend some time with your family…that son of yours. He could use firmer guidance.”

“My lord.” It was all Lucius could safely say.

As soon as Lucius and Severus had made their exit and retreated to an isolated part of the Catacombs, Severus lost his temper. “Black?” he hissed, throwing up his arms. He stalked to the far wall of the room, then whipped about to glower at Lucius, as if that would do anything. “ _Black_?”

“You always did say that Harry had an unusually deep attachment to the man. It would make tactical sense.” Of course, Lucius doubted it made as much strategic sense as Voldemort seemed to think he did, but he was not about to deepen his disgrace by bringing that up.

Banished. House arrest. _Rookwood_ taking over, and Draco haring off to Merlin knew where. Narcissa and that insane sister of hers was going to have a field day with all that, as if the idea of Voldemort using Lucius as—as simple _bait_ wasn’t already denigrating enough. Severus was snarling and frothing at the mouth in his fury and his attempts to not come out and complain about it where Voldemort might hear, and Lucius could hardly care.

“Potter will not react that way,” Severus snapped. “Lucius—Lucius, damn it, will you stop nursing your pride for one moment and attempt to be rational about this?”

“Can you be so certain? It’s rather clear that Harry isn’t quite like he used to be.” Something fell into Lucius’ eyes: a lock of hair. He pushed it back and somehow caught his fingers on the tie so it snapped and all his hair fell free. He irritably pulled it out of the way and savagely retied it so tightly that the skin around his hairline was drawn tighter than a bowstring. “Are you going to suggest an alternative to our Lord’s idea?”

Severus’ lips pressed into a hard line. After a moment, he stiffly shook his head. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Then I suggest you get on with your end. I need to prepare for my…retreat.” The word stuck in Lucius’ throat, a clot of acid. He spat it out and swerved around Severus to reach the door. “At least I have one advantage—I won’t have to be in Black’s greeting party.”

“No, you’ll be too busy serving on his godson’s.” Before Lucius could make a grab at him, Severus had pushed past and stomped down the hall. His robes slapped around the corner, and then he was gone.

“Was I interrupting?” said a low, lazy voice like a riffle of rocks over boulders. When Lucius turned around, Fenrir Greyback was lounging against the wall. He drew back his lips in a wide, feral grin full of jagged yellow teeth. “Our Lord’s sent me as your escort, just to show how much he values your safety.”

Lucius briefly saw the world fade into pure mist. It resharpened a moment later, but it was an entirely different world—it was a place where he, one of Voldemort’s earliest supporters, no longer had a place by the Dark Lord’s side. If he wanted to survive, he’d have to make alternative arrangements with some other power that was great enough to contest Voldemort. He’d have to make compromises. But that no longer carried the tang of humiliation; in one short interview, Voldemort had ensured that Lucius no longer had to fear the _possibility_ of that. Humiliation now was the circumstance that characterized his life.

It was freeing, in a way that only the condemned and the deeply insane probably could appreciate. “I need to pack,” Lucius said. He was startled at how pleasant he sounded. “You may accompany me to my chambers first.”

Greyback dropped his lower jaw so his smile exuded bloodthirsty anticipation. “Of course, Malfoy. Is your son going to be home?”

A chill ran up Lucius’ spine, ending the strange moment of near-euphoria that had taken him. He reminded himself that Draco was eighteen, and if not a good Death-Eater, at least a full-fledged wizard. And somehow Lucius didn’t think Draco would be home…he hoped now that Draco wouldn’t, no matter how worry twisted in his chest. His son was better out of it; at least then something would stand a chance of being salvaged from the Malfoy line. “My entire family will be in residence, as well as Bella. You do remember her, don’t you?”

The smile on Greyback’s face twisted into a sullen snarl. “I do. Come on, Malfoy. I wouldn’t want to keep you from your loved ones.”

“I’m quite sure,” Lucius said. In fact, he was no longer sure of anything at all, except that Voldemort was no longer his way.


	5. The Bed You Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Switching allegiances is a messy business.

“Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord GOD.”  
\-- _Ezekiel 22:31_

* * *

As it turned out, Draco wasn’t the only one who’d been graced with a visit from very-not-dead Harry. While Lupin was gravely explaining his encounter, the wards rippled and everyone tensed. A second later, Fred Weasley walked in and of course then they had to hear his story.

“I don’t know what he is, but…I didn’t feel right around him,” Fred finished. He slumped in a chair next to his brother Charlie and shakily reached for the mug someone handed him—George, Draco belatedly recognized. Fred’s twin had several more scars than he’d borne the last time Draco had seen him.

“I fear he has little in common with the Harry we knew.” Lupin rose and stared out the grimy panes of the tiny kitchen window. His hands kneaded the edge of the sink. “The _wolf_ was afraid of him. Afraid and…so are the people standing in this room the only ones who’ve seen him so far?”

Draco rattled his cigarette pack: he was down to two or three. No chance that any of the others carried the brand he preferred, or that he’d be able to continue purchasing it, but he’d have to get something. Giving up Voldemort and whiskey in the same night already were more than enough sacrifices for his system to handle. “You, Fred, George, me…I have the impression Harry’s dropped in on my father and Avery, but I don’t think Voldemort will let them spread the word.”

“Hermione was with George, but she’s having a…” Fred winced and rocked his hand from side-to-side. “Be a while before she starts talking to people again, I reckon. She’s in the books now.”

“Then I suggest we keep this under wraps. Harry seems to have his own agenda, and until we know what it is, we can’t chance contact with him. We’ve got too many people at risk,” Lupin said. He pushed away from the sink and poured himself a glass of water from a dingy white china pitcher with a cracked lip that trickled all over the table. “Draco. Are you _sure_ you can’t go back?”

Lack of cigarettes be damned. There was no way Draco was getting through the next few minutes without some kind of comfort, and nicotine was currently it. He lit one up and pretended he wasn’t worrying about the impending withdrawal period. “Even if Harry keeps his mouth shut—which he’s got no reason to do that I can see—my father’s in deep disgrace with Voldemort now. He’s worried. He tried to banish me to the Manor, and you know once I’m there, I’m past your reach.”

“Well, you can’t stay here,” George snapped. His eyes flicked to Draco’s arm. “It’s a wonder Voldemort hasn’t already used you to raid this place.”

Draco blew a perfect smoke ring in Weasley’s face. George made an aborted step towards Draco, but was held back by his brother. Before he could shake himself free, Lupin had interposed himself between Draco and them.

“You will have to go,” Lupin quietly said. “We can offer you other safe-houses, but you can’t use any that we use. If we knew how Snape managed to keep Voldemort from using the Mark to track him to Order Meetings when he—when we thought he was on our side—”

Oh, bloody typical. For all that they claimed to be the good, upstanding, rally-round-the-fort side, the resistance was just as quick to fall back on self-preservation as the Death-Eaters were. It wasn’t surprising, but it still stung. “That’s fine,” Draco drawled. “I need to pick up some more fags anyway.”

George rolled his eyes and stage-whispered something about double meanings and slumming aristocrats, which Lupin drowned out by virtue of taking Draco by the arm and hauling him into the hallway. He stopped them near the door and glanced slowly around before he released Draco. The light was dim, but Draco still thought he saw Lupin’s nostrils flaring.

“I suppose they’re upset I left their baby sister in my father’s clutches. Well, do remind them that I offered, but she turned me down flat,” Draco said. He knew perfectly well that snarling wasn’t going to be of any use, since Lupin would just neaten up everything before he relayed the message, but it still made Draco feel a little better.

“Harry didn’t…try to injure you at all?” Lupin asked. Apparently he wasn’t even going to bother with politeness; he’d simply ignore all the unpleasantness.

Draco shrugged and flicked ash at the scraggly potted plant by the door. “He wiped all the whiskey from my blood. Some people would consider that an injury.”

For the first time, Lupin showed a modicum of impatience. He blew out his breath and his eyes were briefly tinged with yellow. His fists curled, then uncurled at his sides.

It’d just been the full moon, so even if Granger wasn’t around to keep the leash on the werewolf, Draco wasn’t in any danger. Still, he found himself taking a step back. “No, he didn’t. Fred interrupted, and then…I don’t know, maybe Harry was late for his next appointment.”

“Which is why he sat down and stole your cigarettes, as you so pointedly told us,” Lupin dryly commented. He glanced down the hall again, then slipped his hand into his pocket. When he took it out, he was holding a ring so blackened with grime that it was impossible to tell what it was made of. He passed it to Draco in a very curious manner, holding it carefully by the stone or seal decorating it. “Black family heirloom.”

Draco took it just as delicately from Lupin and scratched at it till he’d uncovered the glint of gold and the Black crest. He wrinkled his nose. “Checked it over, I’d hope.”

“It’s a Portkey.” Lupin put both his hands in his pockets, but instead of assuming his characteristic slouch, he straightened. He always appeared too thin, but now the threadbare nature of his clothing momentarily strained over whipcord muscles, a reminder that he wasn’t quite so frail in truth. “Of a kind, anyway. It’s something Hermione came up with the last time she—after her parents were killed. It’s thought-activated, so you can wear it. It’ll take you somewhere neither the Death-Eaters nor we should be able to reach.”

“Number Twelve Grimmauld,” Draco suddenly realized. He nearly dropped the damn ring. “I thought Harry destroyed it rather than let it fall into my aunt’s hands.”

Shaking his head, Lupin took a step back. He half-turned, then retreated a little further. “No, he…there was no time. He meant to, but all we could manage was to lock it down. Then he died, and the house seemed to disappear. Hermione made this in an attempt to get access to it again, but it didn’t work.”

Which begged the question of why Lupin was now giving it to Draco, but one possible answer was fairly obvious. “But you tried it again and it works now.”

“In a way. It’s too unwelcome a place for us to use.” The shadows of the hall slid sideways and then snapped back as somewhere outside, a car went down the road. It should’ve been well into morning by now, but the light half-barring Lupin’s face still had the hard cast of artificial bulbs, and not the wan softness of dawn. His eyes, for all their coolness, were far brighter. “There’s something else. Someone’s been there—”

Draco raised his eyebrow. It was a reflex, because the rest of him was spectacularly staggered with disbelief and thus was unable to produce any more appropriate reaction. “So you’re expecting me to go to ground in a hellhole even you can’t stand, in hopes of…what? Talking some sense into Potter? Why don’t you—well, I can understand you not wanting to go there, given how I understand your relationship to Black was, but you could always drag in Gran—”

Lupin produced a sound. Actually, it would’ve been more accurate to say he produced an effect, because the low, rolling snarling didn’t make itself heard in Draco’s ears so much as through the way it vibrated his bones. The other man’s eyes flashed yellow. “Draco, you’re on your own. This and the house in Whitechapel are the only places you know where to reach us, and I doubt Voldemort will take you back this time, even with your father’s influence. Go there or live on the street till he finds you.”

For a moment Draco stared. Then he became aware of the fact that his cigarette had burned down dangerously close to his lip, and he hastily snatched away to put it out. The small breather allowed his sense of gallows humor, by now very well-developed, to catch up with him. He snickered to himself. “Don’t tell me you expect me to spy on Harry for you. That’s absurd.”

“So is this entire world, but we still live in it,” Lupin said. He leaned one shoulder against the wall and pushed at his hair, looking tired. “He obviously didn’t intend to see me or Fred or George—those were accidents. He deliberately visited you, of all people, but didn’t injure you. I expect you were your usual self then, and don’t expect you to do anything else.”

“I’m flattered, really, but I don’t think that’ll bring back the old Harry,” Draco replied. He fumbled out his last cigarette and stared at it. The likelihood that number twelve Grimmauld Place would have _any_ source of nicotine was very, very slight.

He lit up. If one couldn’t be short-sighted when the known world was being ripped from the walls to expose the void behind, when could one?

“That wasn’t what I had in mind.” Lupin was so very clearly lying; werewolves might be Dark creatures, but the desperate hope shone from him like candlelight refracting off a steel bowl. “You’re not useful standing around here, Draco. I don’t know what your reasons for helping us are, but I do know that we can afford no allowances for waste.”

That hurt. It hurt, but at least it pointed Draco in the direction of what to do instead of simply excoriating him because he wasn’t living up to some unknown standard. And he supposed he was curious himself about Potter’s actions. He also retained a reasonably strong desire to live, but only if he could do so in a way that would make something of him. Dying while trying to learn about the greatest Dark power since Voldemort probably would fit the bill.

“I don’t suppose I could have some supplies before I go, or am I to fend for myself in that respect as well?” Draco finally said.

“I restocked the place, and did a little cleaning. On the off-chance that…” With a shrug, Lupin turned completely around. Apparently he believed Draco would go.

Draco was tempted not to, and furthermore to aim his wand at Lupin’s exposed back out of sheer perversity, but that was an old habit whose back had been broken during the past years of living in disfavor. He restrained himself to sneering once at the other man before he slid the ring onto his finger and signaled for it to take him away.

* * *

Over the past week, Lucius had feverishly ransacked his library for even the smallest references that might elucidate horcruxes or Harry Potter’s resurrection. It was slightly calmer than walking out to deal with his wife, who was stepping up her attempts to distance herself from him in Voldemort’s eyes, or his sister-in-law, who was carrying on a near-war with Greyback. The werewolf hadn’t merely escorted Lucius home, but had also installed himself in a ground-floor guestroom. When asked for an explanation, he’d referred Lucius to Voldemort and Voldemort had silkily informed Lucius that Greyback would be “guarding” him till further notice.

Draco wasn’t home, and while Lucius more or less knew that his son had gone over to the resistance, he hadn’t the slightest clue where. He was allowed to request any book he wanted from any library within Voldemort’s territories, but he was carefully kept in the dark as to current developments. Even Narcissa, who was absolutely incensed at Draco’s defection, never let slip any news during her rants.

Lucius chose to take that as a good sign. If Draco had been found, they would have been sure to rub that into Lucius’ nose as further evidence of how he’d failed as a leader.

Nevertheless, the lack of information was maddening and only provided him more impetus for throwing himself into his research. And finally, finally he picked up an obscure reference that sounded familiar, and managed to follow it till he found something.

Horcruxes. Containers of divided souls. As long as one part remained on the earth, its owner was not truly dead—so this was Voldemort’s idea of defying death. If Lucius had known sooner, he would have made some very different decisions: the entire concept was utterly crass, obviously rooted in the mudblood peasant personality. It was like the immortal version of penny-pinching.

Lucius threw himself back in his seat and stared blankly at the page till his vision blurred. He knew Voldemort was keeping tabs on his progress, as Potter had intended. Early on, Lucius had left the library to sleep and returned in the morning to find his notes and books rearranged; since then he’d Transfigured the library couch into a bed, but he still sometimes woke to find short, coarse grey hairs scattered on the parchment sheets.

There was little he could do about that, save try to find out as much as he could during the day so he might have a chance of acting on it before he had to sleep and his minders came to look in on his work. Horcruxes were very obscure black magic; how to create them was in none of the books Lucius looked through, and so he guessed that piece of knowledge had been what Voldemort had traded his soul for: Lucifer must have been laughing at the idea that someone could cut a deal with him for a way to free themselves from that deal.

Harry had said three Horcruxes had been destroyed, one of them himself—which explained why he had appeared before Lucifer when he’d died. Lucius hazarded a guess that one of the other two had been Tom Riddle’s diary, given Voldemort’s fury when he’d learned what Lucius had done with it.

The last of the three might have been whatever Dumbledore had found at the Gaunts’ ruined house. Shortly after the headmaster had visited the place, Voldemort had ordered Macnair to lead a team there and had been enraged when they’d come back empty-handed. And afterward, Draco had noted to Lucius that Dumbledore’s hand appeared to be crippled.

Lucifer’s collecting also explained why Voldemort hadn’t simply been able to create new ones and had thrown such fierce rages after one was destroyed. But then, if Harry was one…Severus’ point about Voldemort letting the Death-Eaters kill him still presented an irregularity.

Unless—Lucius pulled the book towards him and rapidly flipped through the heavy vellum pages till he reached the one dealing with effects of making horcruxes out of living creatures. The soul-shard would remain active and independent, but there was always the possibility that it would merge to some extent with the soul of its host. Especially if the host-soul shared similarities…and attempting to bribe Lucifer with the soul of an innocent was a common motif in folklore concerning wizards and witches who tried to gain extensions on their contracts with the Devil. In which case the irregularity was explained, and Lucius was rather astounded at how _stupid_ his chosen leader had been.

“Lucius!” The library doors burst open and banged into the walls so hard that a tremor went through the shelves. It was quite an accomplishment, given that each door weighed several hundred pounds. “Lucius, I cannot _stand_ that mangy—”

Even with a full snit propelling her, it would take Bellatrix several minutes to make it through the maze of shelves and mysteriously-shifting ladders. That was more than enough time for Lucius to send the books he’d been reading back to their places and silently exit through one of the large bay windows.

He walked briskly across the lawn, while behind him Bella’s shrieking slowly faded. Some days he wished that the aristocratic tradition did not include offering hospitality to certain members of the extended family. Rodolphus had been killed in an unusually successful resistance attack several months ago, and Bella crippled in another attack a few weeks later, which left her on Lucius’ hands. Personally, he thought the damned woman was too excessive and should have been dealt with years ago.

“Out for a tour of the grounds?” Greyback slipped out from behind a bush, wearing his usual feral smile. His eyes glittered as he fell into step besides Lucius.

“You’ve upset dear Bella,” Lucius said, withdrawing as much as he could. He glanced towards the house, but Narcissa was not in any of the rooms on this side.

The other man laughed. He moved with a peculiar lope, sometimes going ahead of Lucius only to try and circle back behind. When he tried that, Lucius was always careful to change their trajectory so Greyback had to settle for beside. Lucius still wasn’t positive that Greyback was here to assassinate him if Voldemort deemed that necessary, but he thought it a good possibility.

“That bitch doesn’t know what she’s missing. Funny, you purebloods—you’ll do whatever you like, but someone asks if they can share in the fun and if they’ve not got the right parents, you’re horrified,” Greyback rasped. He rolled his head about in a strangely liquid manner, like a beast stretching its muscles before diving at its downed prey. “Thought she might want some comforting, what with her husband dead and all.”

The disgust Lucius felt at the idea of it was almost palpable. Crack-brained as Bellatrix was, she still was a Black by blood and a Lestrange by marriage, and this _creature_ was contemplating…but there was no point in giving Greyback the satisfaction. He’d probably done it with the expectation of their revulsion. “Bella’s held her head up through worse.”

“As she took great pleasure in informing me. Still, pity.” Greyback laughed again, his red tongue coming out to flick lewdly about his lips. He abruptly slid his eyes towards Lucius. “And how are you, Malfoy? Wife seems a bit cold nowadays, son’s run off to be a little traitorous bastard…”

Lucius felt his jaw tighten at the mention of Draco. He pointedly looked away and over the grounds, walking towards their edge. Fairy rings were springing up all over the farther reaches; Narcissa had been keeping a slacker hand on the gardeners. If that weren’t immediately rectified, Lucius would have a damned pixie infestation on top of everything else.

Then again, perhaps it wasn’t Narcissa’s fault. Something thin and twisted that was poking out from a bush, like a moldy branch, caught Lucius’ eye and he went over to investigate. When he pushed aside the leaves, he found the mangled remains of a house-elf.

“Your great victory over Potter’s been turned upside-down…I do wonder how you sleep at night,” Greyback drawled, sauntering up beside Lucius.

“I would appreciate, Fenrir, if you would refrain from abusing my household staff. You and I seemed to be on good enough terms in the past for you to respect them.” That was an understatement. The goddamned hairy monster owed his life several times over to Lucius, but of course that had been conveniently forgotten. “Though the concern over my sleep is quite kind of you, I am fine. I’m rather preoccupied with carrying out the duty Voldemort’s assigned to me.”

Lucius let the branches snap back in place and continued on in a direct line for the very boundary of his lands. He soon outdistanced Greyback, but he knew better than to think that was due to anything on his part. But since he was interested in drawing out Fenrir’s true mission here, he played along for the moment.

He had to admit he was also frustrated and unwilling to deal with close-range contact right now; he was used to being able to roam at will, to be at the center of any great movement, and this enforced isolation grated on him. He didn’t even know how Severus’ half was coming along—or if Severus was in fact obeying Harry. Circumstances were such that Lucius’ best chances lay with Potter, at least for the foreseeable future, but Severus never had such a straightforward personal agenda.

When Lucius stopped, putting his cane down just inside of the grounds’ boundary, he stood behind a small stand of trees that blocked most of the manor from view. He unclipped his wand from his cane and checked on Greyback’s position: the werewolf was ranging around about two hundred yards away, probably terrorizing the wildlife while he left Lucius to sulk. Which Lucius had no intention of—

\--he lifted his hand, then stumbled back so hard that he bumped the end of his cane against a half-buried rock. It jogged up against his palm before bouncing completely out of his grip and falling across the boundary.

Harry stooped and picked it up, casually tossing it from hand to hand. “’lo, Malfoy. Where’re the legions of hellhounds and trolls that are supposed to keep non-purebloods from getting within a foot of this place? Or was Draco just making that up?”

Lucius still had his wand, however much good that might do. He backed up a yard so he was out of lunging distance. “The hellhounds wouldn’t pose much of a challenge to you now, would they?”

“Oh, your sense of humor’s back,” Harry said, a dangerous laugh bubbling up through his voice. He planted the cane on the ground and leaned on it till he was almost over the boundary line. “What? Not going to ask me in for tea while we’re at it?”

“Return my cane and I might consider it.” The first thought that ran through Lucius’ mind was that if he invited Harry onto the grounds, Greyback might come in time and then Lucius would be restored to Voldemort’s good graces, though he’d have to share the credit. The second, saner thought he had was that even if that worked, Potter probably would kill him before the fight was over.

The jagged, malicious humor faded out of Harry’s face. “I’m not a child, Malfoy, and I’m certainly not stupid.”

No, thinking about Voldemort was merely old habit. The Dark Lord no longer was a viable option. “Fenrir Greyback is only—”

“Actually, he’s smelled something odd and should be along shortly.” Harry made a face of exaggerated disgust and waved his hand in front of his nose. “Phew. Though he really has nowhere to stand on when it comes to that.”

Lucius couldn’t help but look over his shoulder, but he still didn’t detect anyone. He probably could if he tried a spell, but he wasn’t certain Harry wouldn’t take that for a brewing attack. “If you’re going to kill him, I’d appreciate knowing. I’ll need to contact the gardeners for proper disposal of the body.”

Harry laughed again; his hair fell before his glasses in a way that would’ve been attractively rakish, if he weren’t capable of spinning Lucius’ world like a top. His amusement gradually died away again, and he cocked his head to look up at Lucius. “Christ, you’re actually serious about that. Now I see why Draco’s still such a prat.”

“You’ve seen Draco?” Lucius blurted. He caught himself and brought a hand up to press against his breastbone; his heartbeat was entirely too quick. “What have you done to him?”

After a moment, Harry drew himself up and plucked the cane out of the ground. He hiked it in his hand to wipe the dirt off the bottom. “Nothing much.” He glanced up at Lucius with raised eyebrows. “I’m telling the truth here.”

“What, exactly, does ‘much’ mean with you?” Lucius took a shaking step forward. “If you’ve—”

“Another step should do it,” Harry observed, looking at Lucius’ feet. When Lucius stopped, suddenly aware of what he’d been on the verge of doing, Harry gave him a crooked smile. Then he flipped around the cane and held it out, head-end first, to Lucius. “Come on. You want this back, right?”

Lucius eyed him, trying to read any kind of clue in Potter’s face. The cane was tantalizingly close, but he didn’t lift his hand to it. “What are you doing here? Status report? I’ve found out what a horcrux is, but I don’t know anything else. In case you’ve not noticed, your little diversion has worked perfectly—Voldemort has me watched so closely that I don’t know a damned thing.”

“Yeah, but I’m also supposed to have a strange fascination for you.” Harry’s voice dropped and thinned out in an imitation of Voldemort so accurate that Lucius nearly recoiled. Either Harry had some way of spying on Voldemort’s inner chambers or he had a frighteningly deep understanding of Voldemort’s mind and habits; neither prospect sat well with Lucius. “Wouldn’t be convincing if I didn’t show up to get at you once in a while.”

The grass at Lucius’ feet abruptly riffled. There was a slight breeze, but it was blowing in the opposite direction as the way the grass bent, which should be pointing towards the approaching Greyback. “You’ve a point.”

“And you’re taking this too well. Is that all you found out?” Harry suspiciously said. He leaned back so the cane dropped and stared at Lucius. “What are you trying to do? You’ve had a week and even if you’re being spied on…Severus hasn’t found out much either.”

“Well, Severus is probably busy,” Lucius snapped. Then he remembered, and shut his mouth while he tried to calculate what effects that piece of information would have on Potter.

Harry’s eyes narrowed. His hands twitched and Lucius reflexively stiffened, but apparently whatever rules kept Harry from crossing the boundary also kept his magic from doing so. Nothing happened.

“I do happen to know where Draco is,” Harry abruptly said. He pushed his glasses up his nose and leaned forward again. “And it’s somewhere I can get to him. He’s spying for the resistance, you know? I think Voldemort does. I think he’d be very happy to see Draco.”

Lucius’ mouth dried out. “If you did that, nothing would keep me from coming after you.”

“Except for the fact that I’ve already been to hell, and there’s absolutely nothing you could do to top what was done to me there.” Potter sounded almost bored, but the next moment he was leaning forward with burning red eyes and lips peeled back from his teeth. “ _Come here_.”

The _bastard_. The coldblooded little snake—and yes, Lucius recognized the irony even as his temper seethed and he stiffly slid his wand up his sleeve. Then he walked forward so Harry could lift one hand towards him. Harry curled his fingers so only the fingertips touched Lucius’ shoulder, then stroked gently upward to graze the side of Lucius’ jaw. The cuts he’d left there had completely healed, without a trace, but when he touched the spot, parallel lines scorched down from the hinge of Lucius’ jaw to his chin.

“You just sucked in your breath,” Harry murmured. His hand moved back to twist in Lucius’ hair, drawing the long tail over Lucius’ shoulder so it fell down his chest. “You—”

Harry’s eyes didn’t even flick over Lucius’ shoulder. He gave absolutely no warning before he suddenly fisted his hand in Lucius’ hair and used it to throw both of them to the ground. Lucius broke his fall with his elbows and thrashed about to see that he’d fallen half-over the boundary; the hand in his hair yanked again so he slammed against the ground and something long and thin and hard: his cane. He grabbed it just as something roared very near and a hot, stinking wind passed over the top of him.

Then he was free. Wasting no time, Lucius rolled back over to the safe side of the boundary, then tossed his hair out of his face. He looked up just in time to see Harry bring his curled fingers down in a slashing motion at a snarling, spitting-mad Fenrir, who was stretched out beneath Harry. The sun was out now and plenty of shadows were about to hold Greyback down.

A mist of red spurted into existence and only gradually fell; Fenrir’s roar turned to a sick gurgle and then to silence.

Moving awkwardly, Harry got off the still-twitching corpse and staggered upright. He flapped his hand a couple times so chunks of gore flew from it, wandering back towards the boundary line. “All right, I’ll give you a bit of help. Dumbledore was close to figuring out what the horcruxes were when Snape killed him. There were six: two of the outstanding ones are a locket that belonged to Salazar Slytherin, and Helga Hufflepuff’s cup.”

Lucius pulled himself into a sitting position. He felt lightheaded and shaky, and had to lay his cane beside him because his hands were trembling again. “If you’re here for Voldemort, why kill the others?”

“Because they’re murderous bastards that’ve hurt me and my friends.” By now Harry had regained his usual grace. He flopped down on the other side of the line and idly picked at the shreds of flesh stuck beneath his nails. “And because my lord Lucifer never minds a bonus. Why’s Snape busy? What’s going on?”

“Voldemort’s not going to like having top Death-Eaters of his killed. He might think I’m not worth the bother and simply kill me if you keep on like this. Especially if his plan works,” Lucius finally said. He slowly turned over and went down on his elbows, twisting the rest of himself around as he crawled part of the way over the boundary line. His lightheadedness was turning to a strange…he’d like to call it determination, but acceptance also applied.

Two wet hands curved around his cheeks and smeared clammy stickiness down beneath his chin; he felt drops of blood falling onto his collar. Harry bent down as well and whispered across Lucius’ cheekbone, the slightest flicker of tongue feathering over Lucius’ skin. “What is his plan?”

“He’s bringing back your godfather,” Lucius said. He slid his hand beneath himself and dug his fingers into the grass on his side of the property line.

Potter was very still, but his hands didn’t tighten around Lucius’ neck like he’d expected. “Still think we’re playing your game,” he finally replied. “I see.”

“No! This is the tru—” Before Lucius could finish, one of Harry’s hands had jerked down to encircle his throat. The other closed on Lucius’ free wrist, and Harry nearly had him over the line before he stabbed his fingers deep into the earth and held on. The grounds pulled back—they didn’t recognize Harry as their master—but it wasn’t going to keep Lucius back for long. “He is! He thinks it’ll sway you, or at least keep you preoccupied—”

“And you weren’t trying to use that to bargain with me?” The fingers around Lucius’ throat flexed so he gasped, and when his lips parted, in coiled Harry’s tongue. A searing moment later, Harry was roughly mouthing the line of Lucius’ jaw. He bit into it, then ducked down to nuzzle almost affectionately at Lucius’ arm, where the Mark was. “You can relax, Malfoy. He won’t be the one to kill you, I promise.”

And suddenly Lucius was dropping again. This time, he let himself hit the ground. He waited several seconds before painfully dragging himself back onto his grounds. Harry was gone, of course, and the flies were beginning to circle Greyback’s corpse. Lucius pulled himself up and absently brushed hair out of his face, then froze. He jerked his hand down, saw the red smear and briefly panicked before he remembered it wasn’t his. It was…he sat still for a while, staring at his fingers and feeling the mixed blood and spit dry on his skin.

Then he got up and sent for Narcissa and Bellatrix. Next time, he mused, perhaps he could lure Bella down. He ignored the edge of hysteria to his thought.


	6. Dreamers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco makes himself at home. Severus places a risky bet that appears to go awry.

“Consumed by this greedy disposition  
I give no thanks to all that’s been given to me  
See I’m so concerned with selfish ambition  
I see what I want and look past what I need.”  
\--“Shelter,” Greenwheel

* * *

Number Twelve Grimmauld Place was a disaster, and Draco thought that was being generous. It had infestations of every kind of pest known to wizardkind and then a few he only recognized from offhand comments by Muggle-borns, it was dark and cramped, and it had an attitude.

He spent his first few days making sure it understood who he was and what he was capable of, and only then did he venture beyond the basement room into which he’d been dropped. Luckily for him, the kitchen in the basement was relatively inhabitable, and had indeed been recently stocked with food, as Lupin had promised—lucky because Draco soon discovered that the house somehow prevented communication to anyone outside of it, and didn’t care to let him walk outside either. 

On his seventh day, Draco served himself a large lunch and finished it off as he explored the upper floors. The first floor was disgusting. He hurried onto the stairs to the second floor and accidentally jostled a portrait of some old hag, who immediately started to screech and carry on at him like Aunt Bella. Draco promptly hexed the damn thing into silence, which made him feel absurdly pleased with himself till he got onto the second floor and had turned into the nearest bedroom. Then he saw what Lupin had meant about someone else being in the place.

Firstly, the room was neat—neat in the way that meant it was almost half-dead from it—but didn’t glisten like Draco’s home had. Secondly, it was stripped down to the bare essentials: bed with one side-table, two wooden chairs, a dresser. No clothes in the closet. He stepped back outside and wandered further down the hall, absently hexing and banishing as he went, and found a pile of discarded furniture. Then he worked his way back to that particular bedroom.

Thirdly, all the other rooms had portraits in them, but this one didn’t have any. After Draco had stood in the hall and watched for a while, he decided that the portraits out there were indeed averting their eyes from that doorway. Except for that bitch on the stairs, they were all abnormally quiet and still, holding themselves tensely and watching him as if they expected the worst.

He went back into the bedroom and started poking around. Much to his delight, Draco found several packs of cigarettes in a dresser drawer. They weren’t his brand, but they were nearly as good and he lost no time in sticking a lit one between his lips and a pack in his pocket.

“You know, if I’d just brought some from hell instead of picking those up at the corner shop, you’d be in loads of trouble right now. If you weren’t dead, that is.”

Draco jumped, scrambling to grab his cigarette before it fell from his mouth. Then he gave himself a shake and slewed around to face Harry. “Oh, will you stop that? Yes, we know you’re sneaky. We knew that ever since you got that Invisible Cloak—whatever happened to that, anyway?”

Harry was leaning in the doorway, hands in his pockets. Once he knew Draco had seen him, he pushed off the frame and strolled inside to pick up one of the packs Draco had left on the dresser top. He pulled out a cigarette, but instead of lighting it, spun it in his fingers. “Ron should’ve gotten it. I wanted it left to him.”

He carried a faint smell with him: blood and something else that took Draco a surprisingly long time to recognize. Fear. Not Harry’s own, of course.

“Ron’s been _non compos mentis_ since last month. More or less. He tried to rescue his sister and ended up being entertained by Aunt Bella for a few days before he was rescued himself.” Draco didn’t back away, but he kept a close eye on Harry’s reaction. “She’s been limping around the Manor ever since.”

The muscle in Harry’s cheek twitched. He pressed his lips together, then abruptly turned back and went over to the bed. He sat down on the edge and flopped backward with a long, tired sigh, his hair fanning out around his head. Against the off-white sheets, it looked like some kind of reverse halo.

“Take it you’re not about to kill me, or torture me, or whatever you’ve been doing with my father,” Draco muttered. He dropped into the chair by the bed and consequently discovered that he’d actually been quite nervous, because all his muscles painfully unwound. Then he looked around for an ashtray, settled on a queer-looking dish on the bedside table, and ashed his cigarette. “Do I want to know what you’ve done to him?”

Apparently even demonic resurrected heroes needed a rest now and then. Harry didn’t even lift his head. “Do you love him?”

Then again, perhaps it was because he’d gotten a bit more subtle. That had been a nice, concise, _sharp_ verbal thrust. “What a question. I might as well ask you how hell was.”

Something white blurred up into the air and came back down: the cigarette Harry had. “It was hell, so how am I supposed to describe it?” he irritably said. It was almost as if Draco had caught him snapping at Granger to stop pestering them to do their homework. Then he blew out his breath again and subsided till he was…no, actually, the mattress was sinking beneath him like a sensuous cradle. “It was odd. Time—you felt like years were seconds, and then you felt like time didn’t exist at all. And it hurt.”

Once his cigarette was used up, Draco flicked the butt into the trash and moved himself to the edge of the bed. He felt vaguely present, as if he’d been wrapped in layers of cotton. He knew that this was rather a bad idea, and even now he was letting resentment at his father direct a good deal of this and that just added to the frustration, but he found it quite difficult to care.

“I smelled Lupin in the downstairs. He’s been here.” Up and down spun the cigarette. It was a small white shadow, transient and dancing.

“Yes, and he restocked the pantry. If you have to worry about that sort of thing, anyway. I do—apparently this is where I’m to be staying for now on,” Draco said. He bounced on the mattress a few times. Where he was sitting seemed firm enough, even if the part Harry occupied looked as soft as a poached egg.

Harry stopped tossing the cigarette about and tipped his head so his eyes were slivers of green aimed squarely at Draco. “Why?”

“Because I walked out on the bloody Death-Eaters, and the resistance thinks the best use for me is baiting you. Of course, since they haven’t killed me outright in retaliation for Dumbledore and that assault on Hogwarts, I suppose I should be grateful,” Draco replied, shrugging.

And here was the point where, if the world and the people in it made any sense, Harry was supposed to grab Draco and break his neck. Instead Harry flicked his cigarette so hard at the bed’s canopy that it bounced off and Draco barely snatched it out of the air in time to keep it from smacking Harry in the face. Then he kept on rolling over, since he was already heading in that direction, and kissed Harry goddamn Potter.

After a moment, Harry pulled him off by the hair. “Draco, what are you doing?”

“Well, I’m fairly sure I’m whoring myself for safety.” Draco had his hands on Harry’s chest and one knee between Harry’s legs, which might look very sexy to onlookers but which was damned unstable. He moved his hands to the mattress beside Harry’s head.

Harry blinked once. His gaze was deep and expressionless behind the cracked, bottle-bottom lenses. “I’m fucking your father. Well. Not that itself yet, but eventually. He’s starting to get a bit ragged.”

“And curiously enough, this does not disgust me enough to overcome my desire for self-preservation. I _must_ be desperate,” Draco snorted. He leaned back down, only to be shoved off to the side. “Oh, for Merlin’s sake. If I can’t even compromise—”

As it turned out, he didn’t quite have to because Harry pushed himself over and came at Draco like a storm of fire, wrapping Draco back into the bed and thoroughly scarifying him. His nails caught painfully on Draco’s scalp as they raked through his hair and down the back of his neck, scratching and digging like an animal struggling for a grip. Harry’s knee smacked down on Draco’s thigh; the flesh beneath went numb, then blossomed into pain when Harry slid his knee upwards and inwards to nudge rhythmically at Draco’s prick. The blood in Draco’s veins turned to steam and it seemed that Harry sucked it all out through Draco’s mouth, tongue swirling blood-taste as it went.

Then, of all the things he could have done, Harry backed off a second time. It was evidence that he’d really been through hell and picked up some tricks along the way, Draco supposed, but it was goddamned aggravating. He reached up without thinking and in the next instant, had his wrists slammed into the mattress, which might not have been stiff enough to allow for proper grinding of bones but which still didn’t do much to cushion the pressure.

“Remus sent you here? And because…my God…” Now Harry’s eyes had some life in them. Incredulous, hurt life, but life nonetheless. He laughed blackly and glanced to the side, then back at Draco. “It’s gotten so I can’t tell one side from the other.”

“If I’m to be charitable, I’ll admit I don’t know that this is quite what Lupin had in mind.” Then Draco really heard Harry and frowned. It was a bizarre reaction for him to have instead of say, being utterly terrified of the black shadows that were coiling over Harry’s shoulders, but he’d decided he no longer was going to try and make sense of things. “What? What’s Voldemort doing?”

The shadow on Harry’s left shoulder slowly peeled itself off and rose into the air. It was a peculiar-looking thing, like a blunted one-dimensional snake, and it began to nuzzle Harry’s cheek in a way that made Draco shift about; his prick apparently didn’t give a toss about reality either.

“Charitable?” Harry raised his eyebrow.

“You’re evil, therefore the apocalypse is nigh and all sorts of strange things can happen,” Draco dryly said. He squirmed till he could look at his right wrist. “Potter, if you aren’t about to let me hit the bottom of the well and throw myself at you, mind letting me up?”

To Draco’s mingled disappointment and relief, Harry let go and sat back. “Your father has informed me that Voldemort and Snape are resurrecting my godfather.”

Ah, so that had been what Harry had meant. After a second, Draco started to laugh. He shakily pushed the hair out of his face and fumbled for his pack. It had been squashed by their recent actions, but he managed to extract one cigarette. He was going back for his wand when Harry simply cupped his hand beneath the cigarette tip and a thin trail of smoke began to issue up from it.

Nicotine had a strangely sobering effect on Draco. He laid back for the length of one slow drag, occasionally wincing as a bit of reason attempted to catch up with him. “Harry, why aren’t you trying to kill me or otherwise make my life utter hell? You do remember everything I tried to do to you, don’t you?”

“Like letting Death-Eaters into Hogwarts?” Fingers suddenly closed around Draco’s throat, though not tightly enough to make him choke. Harry’s face loomed over Draco, displacing the clouds of smoke; his eyes flared up once before slowly dying back to their previous state of opacity. “Of course I do. But you’re already as miserable as you can get, and you know it, too.”

Draco had to laugh again. This time it went on a little too long, and when he tried to stop himself, his laughter only shrilled up the scale so his lungs tightened from the lack of air and his skin shrank around himself.

His head rocked back, then forward again and that was when his cheek burned with the pain of the slap. He took in a ragged breath, closed his eyes, and then opened them in the middle of his second breath. Harry was still holding him by the throat and Draco convulsively grabbed the other man’s wrist, trying to shake him. “What are you doing with me?” he hissed. “What are you doing with my father? What do you _want_ , damn it?”

It was so slight that Draco almost missed it, but Harry’s shoulders relaxed. “I need you to get me into Malfoy Manor,” he said. “You see, if it’s not a place I’ve been before when I was alive, I have to be invited in. Or brought in.”

Draco sucked in his breath. “I see.”

“I’d also like to get into wherever they might be bringing back Sirius,” Harry conversationally added. “I’m not going to kill your father. Yet, anyway.”

He was looking hard at Draco when he said that, but if he’d been holding Nagini to Draco’s face, Draco still wouldn’t have been able to provide a coherent answer. Or a coherent reaction, for that matter, so he settled on ‘neutral.’ Harry Potter could read that however he damned well pleased; that probably was what he’d do in any case anyway.

Harry arched his eyebrow. “So?”

“So I’d be happy to give you a tour of my home, since you’re asking so nicely,” Draco sarcastically replied. He pushed himself up and pulled at his clothing. “Aunt Bella’s still home, incidentally.”

“Then I hope you aren’t desperately attached to her,” was Harry’s parting shot. The room was suddenly empty.

Apparently they weren’t going quite yet, which gave Draco mixed feelings, but in that mix relief definitely was uppermost. He climbed off the bed and stood unsteadily by it for nearly a minute, trying to sort out what he should do next. Eventually he went downstairs, hexing that screeching portrait hag again, and made himself a sloppy sandwich. He sat down at the kitchen table and chain-smoked and stared at it.

* * *

Severus poked his head out the door long enough to snatch at a passing runner and ask what in Merlin’s name was going on. Then he really looked at the runner, as he’d not done in years, and recognized him as Roger Davies.

Davies stammered and unconsciously pulled at the metal collar around his neck. Most of the slaves had that habit, given other Death-Eaters’ habit of grabbing them by it and half-choking them. “Um…well, you weren’t to be disturbed at all, He said…”

“If I’m asking you, I’m hardly being disturbed against my will,” Severus replied. He found himself trying to tone down his sarcasm.

It was wasted effort. The way Davies reacted, Severus might have well have just _Crucio_ ’d the man. “Greyback, sir! Fenrir Greyback’s just been brought in from Malfoy’s—and he’s dead, and everyone’s upset—”

“Thank you, that will be all,” Severus curtly said. He withdrew back into the hall and shut the door before Davies could fall into worse hysterics.

He quickly walked down the entry corridor of the old Department of Mysteries and into the rotating room, then into the area people liked to refer to as the Death Chamber. He’d set up a lab in the area a week ago, just as Greyback had been ushering Lucius to his exile, and he’d not left the place since except for one time. That exception had been an ill-chosen decision to return to his private chambers in the Catacombs and gather some personal items.

Harry had stepped from behind the door and the next hour had been…best described as uncomfortable, since while Potter had refrained from physical attacks, he certainly no longer was a clumsy boy when it came to alternatives. That had been three days ago.

So Greyback was dead. Frankly, Severus was surprised that it’d taken so long; he’d expected something to happen directly after Harry’s visit to him. Instead his feverish efforts to please Voldemort while searching for an explanation for Harry had warred long and hard with his nerves in which could give him the worse dreams. Perhaps that was deliberate: leaving them alone so long, then suddenly springing attacks on them and then vanishing was a classic psychological guerrilla tactic.

Severus stopped just behind the stone benches that circled the room. Over a hundred candles were scattered about the pit, but they made no headway against the gloom and remained isolated pinpricks, burning dully in an area little bigger than their flame. Past that, the darkness fell like a cloak and he could barely make out the archway rearing up in the center. There was no wind, but the tattered cloth hanging in the arch constantly fluttered and murmured.

Voldemort thought he could use Sirius against Harry. It was a foolish idea and would not work, but Severus had refrained from telling Potter, and now he was going to go through with it, hoping against hope that he would finish before Lucius or some other source let Harry know what he was up to.

He slowly exhaled, and the stirring created by his breath seemed to both echo about the room and to die instantly away before him. He started moving down the stairs towards the archway. His one and only chance was quickly passing away from him.

Despite—or perhaps because of—all that had transpired during the course of his life, Severus had a great and fierce desire to live on. At the bottom of it he feared was some foolish hope that if he survived long enough, he would see the light of the sun once again, but in any case, it was an integral and unchangeable part of him. When he’d seen his life sinking too deeply into Voldemort’s hands, he had sought out Albus, and when Albus had failed, he’d thrown himself back into Voldemort’s arms. And now…

He knelt at the edge of the dais and studied the muddy gleam of the sigils he had painted all around the platform. Once upon a time, he’d told featherbrained young first-years that he could stopper death. If any of them had had a wit in their head, they would have seen that for an empty boast; the real challenge was stoppering life.

Severus moved slightly aside so he could reach the goblet, with paintbrush still inside it, that he’d left there earlier. He pulled a small wrapped-paper packet from his robes and carefully unfolded it to reveal the hairs within it: some long as his wand, some short as his thumb, but all the same tangled coal-black. For all that he was an Animagus, Pettigew had ignored the mundane-appearing items and gone for the few flashy possessions Black had had left; if his motivations for betraying his old friend had ever been unclear, that had rectified that.

After removing the paintbrush, Severus dropped the hairs one by one into the goblet. He leaned back as the remaining potion inside bubbled and hissed thin lines of green smoke at his eyes. It simmered, then cooled to iciness within seconds of the last hair.

He picked up the goblet and set it on the floor beside his feet, then removed his outer layer of robes and carefully folded them. Those he also put on the floor, to the other side of the archway so he could grab them quickly if need be. Then he took out the goblet again and lifted his wand above it.

He began to lower the tip into the cup, but aborted that at the sound of something scraping against stone. When he whirled about, wand foremost, a dry chuckle greeted him.

“Ah, Severus, you need not fear Potter will interrupt,” Voldemort said as he came gliding down the stairs. Nagini slithered behind him, her head slipping in and out of his robes. “I doubt even he would dare risk a frontal confrontation with me at this point.”

“My lord, I wouldn’t have dreamed of pulling you away from your duties,” Severus uneasily began. He’d been counting on being completely _alone_ for this, and he desperately hoped that his disappointment was not obvious.

He casually lowered the goblet as he turned to greet the Dark Lord, and just as casually, he flicked open the top of the ring on his left hand and knocked the contents of its hidden compartment into the goblet. It frothed, but silently, and given the way Severus held the cup, only he could have seen that. He had difficulty not gritting his teeth; that ingredient should have gone in at the very last minute, and he didn’t have the time to work out what effect the delay might have.

Voldemort shook his head, and did not stop until he was standing less than a foot from Severus. “Oh, no. I am just as concerned with the outcome of this as you, Severus. I only wish to observe. Continue.”

Severus had no choice but to turn back to the archway. He lifted his wand, then dipped its tip into the goblet while murmuring. The wood flared white and a scorching, black strand of smoke whipped up where it touched the potion. It didn’t continue on towards the ceiling, but instead bent about Severus’ head, grazing burns over his ear. He held the goblet slightly to the side, knocked the wand against the rim to remove the excess potion, and leaned over to draw the final sigils on the dais.

The fluid was thick and dark, with the faint smell of sulfur. It blended in so well with the stone that Severus was hard-put to distinguish the lines he’d just drawn and ensure that he correctly inscribed the symbol. When the line seemed to be thinning too much, he dipped his wand back into the potion. The moment he added the last stroke, he took a long step backwards.

For a second, nothing happened and Severus feared that he’d gotten it wrong. His nails sank through his robes to gouge at his hips.

Then a wild wind blew vertically upward from the air; it would have inverted Severus’ robes and sent him crashing into the ceiling like a storm-taken umbrella if he hadn’t made a desperate leap to the side. The change in the angle at which the winds hit his breeze meant he merely slammed down on his side, several yards back, instead. His robes whipped up in his face and he pushed at them, then ripped at them when it became clear he was suffocating.

As suddenly as they’d come, the winds died. The air was still and chilly, and the only sounds Severus heard were a low, thin moan and Voldemort’s equally low, thin voice. “There, there,” Voldemort was saying. “You’ve come through in one piece.”

Severus sharply shook his hands to free them of the cloth strips and sat up. Voldemort was bent over the dais and his front was…no, his robes were being pushed up into that hump from the outside, not the inside. As Severus watched, the heavy fabric slowly fell aside to reveal a thin, pale body clinging to Voldemort’s knees.

“Solid…” it rasped.

“Yes, I am, and I won’t disappear on you.” Like a spider, Voldemort’s spindly long fingers coursed through the dark head of hair. His forefinger and thumb circled one white ear, and then he abruptly withdrew so the man fell hard on the dais.

It was Black, but he appeared even worse off than when he’d escaped from Azkaban. He curled up without even a hiss of pain and didn’t seem to notice Severus approaching.

“Well done, Severus,” Voldemort said. He regarded Black in the same manner as he would a flagstone; when Nagini came up and bumped her head against his knee, his eyes warmed in comparison. “You may take him to your chambers and begin instructing him.”

Severus looked down at Black. He swallowed, but the sour taste in his mouth only strengthened. “Yes, my lord.”

He’d failed.

* * *

Several hours later, Draco had finally eaten the sandwich. After that, he hadn’t known quite what to do and finally had settled on cleaning up after himself, mostly because a bold rat the size of his foot had actually come out of the woodwork to stare at his crumb-bestrewn plate. He’d hexed the thing into a dark stain on said woodwork, but nevertheless he made a run at the sink.

“Dear Merlin,” he muttered as the water ran over his hand and the plate. “I’m not even a pet. I’m a damned house-elf—”

Someone screamed. Then the scream turned into a roar that literally shook the house; Draco dropped the plate and dove for the floor, scrabbling for his wand. He rolled beneath the table and made a dash for the hall on the premise that the sound seemed to be coming from the other direction. Of course, he was utterly wrong.

Harry came storming down the stairs, eyes surrounded by a red glow. He tossed his hands up in the air and the people in the portraits—even the bitch-hag—promptly ducked. “You let them! You let them do that! You let them bring him back! I thought we had a—”

The long shadow that had been sweeping behind Harry suddenly flooded ahead of him, then curled itself off the wall like a rearing cobra. It towered above him so that even with power literally smoking off him, he looked like a boy facing off against an elephant. A touch of the old Harry was evident in how he shoved his fists against his hips and glowered up without apparently noticing the disparity.

“I’m doing what you said,” Harry hissed. “Haven’t I sent you two already? Maybe they’re not the Horcruxes, but I’m seeing to that. I _will_ have those.”

Shadow and boy. It was like some demented tableau out of Draco’s mother’s medieval grimoires.

Harry’s lip curled at whatever response he received, and he abruptly snapped out of his tense crouch to slouch elegantly with one hand on the railing. “Why everyone thinks they have something to offer me, I’ll never understand. I told you when we made our deal—I’m not interested in afterwards. I’m doing this for you, and then I’m on my own. You promised.”

The shadow lingered a second longer before it fragmented and each piece flowed back to its correct place. Somehow it did that in such a way as to suggest careless dismissal, the way Lucius had used to greet any stubborn protest of Draco’s. _Don’t worry, you’ll come round soon enough._

“Bastard,” Harry muttered. His elaborate casualness dropped off like a rock and he stalked down the stairs in such a black fury that he almost missed Draco. Then he stopped and backed up, tilting his head. The corners of his mouth turned up in what was decidedly not a smile.

Draco had the cigarette in his mouth before he even realized where his hands had gone. “I take it that’s set the agenda for the day?”

“Congratulations, Malfoy. Your dad’s gotten a reprieve—we’re not visiting him yet. We’ll visit some of his friends first—care to see what Macnair’s been up to lately?” Harry turned around and went back up the stairs, clearly expecting Draco to follow. “Then you’re taking me to Snape.”

Which Draco, not being stupid even if he was dangerously close to calling it all a lark and giving up, did. He wondered idly if he should try getting word to Lupin and the other resisters, and then he wondered if it’d make a particle of difference. One by one, they’d all managed to end up on the same road, after all, and he imagined he’d be seeing the rest of them sooner or later.


	7. No Stone Unburied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort puts his plans in motion, Severus lays his, and Harry sits back to watch.

“Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs; the sage is ruthless, and treats the people as straw dogs.”  
\--Lao Tzu, _Tao Te Ching_

* * *

In a rare moment of commonsense, Voldemort allowed Severus to take Black to his estate. While doing so, he let slip a hint to the effect that Harry seemed to have some restrictions on his powers—namely, he had problems entering places he hadn’t been before—and so Severus let down his guard a little once they were safely within the estate wards. He’d gained ownership of it after Harry had died, so there was no way Potter could have ever been to the place before.

Severus deposited Black, who seemed near-comatose, in a guest bedroom and ordered the nearest pair of house-elves to see to the man’s care and feeding. Then he withdrew to his library.

He’d had a very little spare time in between working on Black’s resurrection and he’d used it to track down the few references to horcruxes that existed. Now he sat down and pulled out his notes, reviewing them against his memory, which was blurred and fragmented by a week of almost no sleep and unending work. When he’d finished, he called for some whiskey.

After he’d had a glass, he tossed his notes aside and got down on his knees before the fireplace to light a fire. It had been kept scrupulously clean, he noted, so at least he didn’t have household problems to add to his list of worries.

As soon as the fire was going, he tried calling Lucius on a secured private line of theirs. He kept his wand at hand in case he ran up against some detection spell or ward of Voldemort’s; he wasn’t entirely clear on what treatment Voldemort was meting out to the other man. 

The flames turned black and Severus immediately lifted his wand to untraceably end the call, but suddenly they cleared and Lucius’ head appeared in the flame. He looked exhausted, and strands of his hair had been pulled out of his braid to loop in front of his face. _I’d almost forgotten about this,_ he said. One hand absently went up to push the locks out of his face. _Well, has our other lord and master ordered you to contact me, or did you act on your own initiative and call up to gloat?_

“How safe is it for us to use this line?” Severus asked, ignoring Lucius’ sarcasm. “I heard Greyback was killed on your property.”

Lucius flinched. Then he rubbed at his face with his hand and let out a cracked chuckle. _Pure rumor. He was killed about two yards from my property line. You see, Harry’s never been here, and he’d need an invitation. Of course, even if I’d had time to mention that to Greyback, I doubt he would have taken me seriously._

“Sir?” said a timid voice.

When Severus whipped around, the house-elf almost tripped itself in its haste to get back into the hall. “Gimpy is so sorry, sir, but sir is telling Gimpy to say when the guest is stirring, and—”

“Thank you, Gimpy. Leave. I want privacy.” Severus turned back to the fire with gritted teeth. He saw Lucius smiling and nearly lost his temper. Even if the smile lacked any good humor, he found it unsuitable to their situation. “For Merlin’s sake, Lucius—if you’re going to have a breakdown, have it and get it over with. We can’t waste time.”

_Feeling a bit nervy, now that Voldemort’s made you Harry’s second least-favorite person after himself?_ Thankfully, Lucius immediately followed that snide comment up with a dry but concise summary of what his research had yielded and some of his conclusions. He probably was holding back a good deal, but basically everything he did care to reveal dovetailed with Severus’ own findings. He also related the skeleton version of his latest visit from Potter, which made Severus inwardly knot up. _I think he’s in contact with Draco_ , he concluded.

If that were true, then either Draco had finally learned the lessons his elders had been trying to force into him or he was a good deal more broken than Severus remembered. “That might be his best chance.”

_Why, Severus, are you growing a sense of optimism this late?_ Lucius replied. He abruptly glanced over his shoulder, then turned back with a worried expression fading from his face. _Have you located any of the Horcruxes?_

After rechecking the security of their line, Severus leaned forward. “I’ve seen the Hufflepuff cup. Voldemort keeps it in his…resting chamber at his private estate.”

Lucius wasn’t so shaken that he missed the catch in Severus’ voice. His eyebrow rose. _I don’t suppose you also know whether he wears the locket. I think now I’m rather glad he never favored me with such…attentions._

“I do not know, and I suppose your opinion comes from firsthand experience,” Severus acidly replied. He took a small pleasure in watching Lucius twitch; the other man unconsciously lifted his hand to rub along his jaw, where Harry had cut him with his own cane. “What kind of guard are you under?”

_Spells, mostly. Patchwork now, which is why your call came through, but I believe they’re sending Macnair over to properly do the place. They’re also evacuating Narcissa and Bella, much to my wife’s displeasure._ Lucius shrugged. _But Voldemort prefers not to lose any more of his Death-Eaters to Harry. That rather leaves me out of the horcrux-tracking, but I think I’ll busy myself with finding out what Potter is._

“The quickest way would be to ask him.” Severus ended the call before the spreading outrage on Lucius’ face could result in speech.

He spent another few minutes making certain that his call couldn’t be traced back before he doused the fire and headed for the guest bedroom.

The last time Severus had seen Black, the man hadn’t reacted even to a finger prying up his eyelid to lightly touch the white of his eye. If Severus hadn’t been able to hear Black’s wheezing, he might have thought him dead. So he didn’t take any special precautions when he walked into the room.

Then he saw that the bed was empty, and he immediately took out his wand and whirled to put his back against the nearest solid piece of furniture. He carefully scanned the room.

A shadow lurched from the far wall and Severus nearly hexed it to kingdom come. Then it dissolved into one of the pale strips of light in the room and he saw it wasn’t Potter.

Black looked…cleaner. Severus had ordered the house-elves to inform him if the man hadn’t eaten so Black must have, but it didn’t look as if that had made any difference. Lank black hair hung in Black’s face so Severus couldn’t get a good look at Black’s eyes till the other man had staggered to the bed. There Black seemed to mean only to lean against the side, but he stumbled and fell so he was hanging off it by the arms. In the process some of his hair flopped out of his face, and Severus could see some kind of intelligence looking back at him.

“Snape,” Black said. His voice was slurred, hoarse, and yet carried a distinct tang of hostility. “The hell am I doing here?”

Severus lowered his wand, but kept it in hand. “You died three years ago, Black. You’re probably not up to the explanation.”

“Bullshit. I could watch, you know. I know what happened.” Either Black was telling the truth, or his time…wherever…had twisted his mind so much that he readily accepted anything now. The way he glowered at Severus as he clawed his way onto the bed indicated the former. “I…” His eyes spaced out and grew dreamy. “Three years? I…I’ve already been to Azkaban, right? That’s already happened?”

Of course, it always could be a combination of the two. But Severus found himself less ill-pleased than he—all right, he would have been near ecstatic with relief if he’d not maimed that capability to uselessness years ago. He hadn’t failed.

He pushed his wand back up his sleeve and came over to the bed, waiting till Black made the inevitable lunge at him. Once the man had, Severus slipped to the side and seized Black’s jaw, tilting it upwards so he could examine Black’s pupils. They were rapidly flickering from wide and round to needlepoints. “You can thank Voldemort for resurrecting you.”

Strangely enough, Black’s reaction was to sob, with enough force that Severus nearly dropped him. Suddenly long bony fingers—Severus reminded himself they belonged to an arrogant _nuisance_ \--banded his arms so the flesh trapped beneath them went numb. “Oh, my God, James and Lily…but they killed him. They—Pettigew! I’ll rip that bastard’s throat—”

“Black!” Severus snapped, now more than a little disturbed. He gave the man a hard shake.

Black’s head snapped back, then slowly came forward. His eyes focused with difficulty on Severus; beads of sweat began to roll down his forehead. “Wait. No. That was over ten years ago—almost twenty. You’re—you always were a Death-Eater, weren’t you? You never were really spying, you greasy son of a bitch. I knew it. I _knew_ it.”

“It’s a moot point when your spymaster dies.” Severus roughly pried himself from the other man’s hold and pushed him back onto the bed. It didn’t take much effort, as Black offered about as much resistance as a sack of feathers.

“You _killed_ Albus. You bastard.” After falling over, Black lay in a crumpled heap for so long that Severus began to think they were finished. But then Black slowly began to roll over, bones shifting to jut grotesquely from beneath his skin. “Don’t think that you can go running to the Headmaster forever, you little sneaky bastard. You keep your nose out of our business, or—”

This conversation was beginning to sound uncomfortably like the lead-up to Severus’ ill-advised decision to listen to Black and go out to the Whomping Willow. Severus leaned over and slapped Black. “I know you never grew out of your schoolyard immaturity, but damn it, Black—try to get hold—”

The man always had retained a wild last-ditch strength, which Severus would have done well to recall. He was seized and rolled over on his back, and he barely had enough time to jam his wand beneath Black’s throat before Black was snarling and squeezing at his own.

“Where’s Harry?” Black growled. “I couldn’t see him anymore…I don’t know when, but—”

“Harry’s dead,” Severus gasped.

The hands around his neck loosened, then fell away. Black stared dumbly down at him.

“ _Stupefy_ ,” Severus snapped.

The spell went out, but all it apparently did was snap back Black’s head; Severus quickly followed up with a crude punch that sent the other man over completely, though the ineffectuality of the spell was evidenced by Black’s weak kicking.

“No, he’s not. He can’t be. Can’t.” The blankets coiled sluggishly about Black’s hands as he kneaded and twisted them. He shook his head hard, then looked up at Severus with a shockingly raw plea in his face. “Is he really?”

Severus tightened his grip on his wand and kept it pointed squarely at Black. “He died at the hands of other Death-Eaters. But he…returned, somehow.”

Black let his head fall to the mattress again. He grimaced and pressed his fist against his face, then rose enough to come over and, for some peculiar reason, clutch Severus’ knee. He banged his forehead against the joint, and when Severus attempted to withdraw the limb, Black only climbed further up. He ground his forehead into Severus’ shoulder while Severus stared at him and willed shock-slackened fingers to lift his wand.

“Came back,” Black muttered. His nails dug through Severus’ robes and rhythmically pushed them back and forth over the same spot. “Wasn’t anything there, really—not even unhappiness, not even a fucking stone floor. Didn’t know what was up, down, anything…and then there was someone…some bastard was petting me and I was so relieved I could _feel_ again…”

“You hugged Voldemort’s knees.” The memory of it rose and renewed the sour taste in Severus’ mouth before he succeeded in banishing it.

A cracked snicker spilled from Black. As it was trailing off, he lifted his head to look at Severus. His eyes seemed firmly fixed in the present, but Merlin knew how long that would last. “Fuck. I’m never going to live that down.” Then his face froze. “He didn’t—he didn’t bring—”

“No, Harry came back a different way. A very different way,” Severus muttered. He got his leg out from under Black and attempted to swing off the bed, but a desperate grip held him back.

Black shoved an icy nose into Severus’ neck. His hands might have had an iron hold on Severus’ robes, but they were shaking so hard the knuckles should have been rattling like so many dice. “Goddamn it, you lousy git. Don’t leave me here with that—that fucking _voice_. I can’t remember—I can remember but I can’t get it right and it’s telling me how things went but what it says feels _wrong_ \--”

It had worked. And it hadn’t. What Severus had wasn’t a mindless puppet on Voldemort’s string, but it wasn’t what he’d wanted, either. But, he told himself, that was the story of his life. He had to work with what he received, not with what he wished for.

He glanced at the door, then slowly got back on the bed and stiffly wrapped his arms around Black. With any luck, the nuisance would fall asleep soon and Severus could move on to the next stage of his plan.

* * *

Draco had no idea how Harry got them out of the house. They’d been walking up the stairs and Harry had reached back to grab Draco’s hand, and the shadows had suddenly come flooding towards them. In self-defense, Draco had thrown up his free arm and that turned out to be fortuitous because the next moment, bright harsh fluorescent light was stabbing at them from all sides.

Of course, number twelve Grimmauld didn’t have fluorescent lighting. When Draco had dropped his arm, he saw that the wooden steps had somehow transformed into concrete, and that they were just emerging onto a Muggle street. “I thought we were going to see Macnair.”

“I said we’ll see what he’s been up to.” Harry watched till the slowly-moving car with the high-beams moved on past them. The darkness fell over him like the welcoming arm of an old friend.

He was still holding Draco’s wrist, and now he pulled Draco along by it till Draco finally hurried up enough to walk by Potter’s side. Though it didn’t look like it, Harry was walking along at a blistering clip and in a few minutes, Draco’s breath was coming short with the effort of keeping up.

They still appeared to be in London, in one of the grimier Muggle districts. The road on which they were was dominated by a large but crumbling stone building, which was surrounded by a high iron fence. As they got closer, Draco could see the remains of iron bars over a few of the windows on the top floors.

“That’s where your grand Dark Lord grew up,” Harry said. “A Muggle orphanage.”

Draco critically studied the place. Every single window was broken and the few glimpses he had of the inside showed blackened walls and burnt plaster. “No wonder he dislikes them so.”

“It looked all right till a few days ago—it’d been converted into a kind of local community center. But then Macnair’s team hit it. Gutted the place out with fire. They put four or five people in the hospital.” Harry dropped Draco’s hand and moved forward to lean against the bars. He put one arm over his head and pressed his face against a wrought-iron curlicue. “They were moving something from it, and they wanted to cover up afterward. But I can’t…I can’t _see_ what the damned thing is. Was. Or where it went.”

“Take it that’s why you’re up here again?” Now that Draco was looking for it, he did catch the faint traces of magic clinging to the ruins. It’d been a reasonably well-done job, which translated into spectacular for Macnair. The bastard’s usual idea of circumspection was not kicking the corpse afterward. “I’ve been to—well, what Macnair thinks is a home. It’s basically a slaughterhouse with some bedrooms upstairs.”

He waited a bit, but Harry merely continued to stare at the burnt-out building. When Draco shook out a new cigarette, a flame appeared to light it, but otherwise it was like Harry had forgotten that Draco was there.

“Oh, well, since I’m being self-destructive: what’s the deal you made to come back from the dead, anyhow?” Draco asked. He wasn’t expecting an answer—at least, not a nonviolent one that was actually relevant to his question. But at the very least, he was hoping for some action on Harry’s part. He’d barely begun to get used to the new version of Potter, and now the fickle wanker was turning around into yet a third version.

Harry finally pushed back from the bars, throwing the ruins one last fierce look. He shoved his hands in his pockets, then pivoted on his heel and walked past Draco, seizing Draco’s elbow again as he did. “Funny, you know—the more people offer me things, the more I start to hate them.”

Draco stiffened a little, but he couldn’t stop because of Harry’s hold on him. He smoked a bit faster, just in case this ended up being the last one. “I thought I’m alive because you needed to go places.”

“I wasn’t talking about you, you arrogant little twat,” Harry snapped. “Think of a specific room in Macnair’s house. And not the—”

The shadowy houses along the side of the road grew hazy and lumpen, then flowed across the road. Once again, there wasn’t even the queasy sense of dislocation that accompanied traveling by Floo to warn Draco; the shadows merely scrolled off to the other side and suddenly they were standing in Macnair’s front parlor. Well. What Macnair called the front parlor. His ideas of entertaining were more or less summed up in the bloody mess strapped to the heavy antique table in the center of the room.

Macnair apparently had stepped out for the moment, because Draco could hear his voice bellowing nearby, but they were the only people in the room.

Harry released Draco and slowly walked over to the table, head bent so Draco couldn’t see his expression. He stopped by the poor moaning bastard’s head and lifted his hand, but instead of pushing the matted hair out of the person’s face, he…strands of blood and gore quickly stripped themselves off, unraveling from broken nose, bruised forehead, slashed cheeks. Pretty soon Macnair’s latest playtoy could be identified as Mad-Eye Moody. He’d been snatched shortly before Harry’s reappearance, but Draco had thought he’d just been taken off and executed somewhere. No one in their right mind would believe that Moody would ever crack under torture.

“Well,” Harry said. He lowered his hand and slung himself around; all Draco could see of what he was doing was that it involved adjusting his shirt-cuffs. “Draco, get him off the table.”

“What about Macnair? Sounds like he’s coming back.” Though Draco already was taking out his wand.

By way of an answer, Harry walked out of the room. Draco looked around, saw a heavy chair and sent it scooting over to brace the door shut. Then he wrinkled his nose, rolled up his sleeves, and attended to Moody while the most horrendous noises went on outside.

Moody came round in the middle of it. Creepy old freak that he was, he didn’t even have the grace to flutter his eyelashes a few times: they snapped right open and the blue eye fixed Draco like a crossbow bolt through the head. “Ferret.”

“I am incredibly tempted to whack one of Macnair’s knives through your throat for that, so don’t push it,” Draco snapped.

He had just finished getting Moody into good enough shape for transportation to be risked when the door flew open—the chair Draco had shoved beneath the knob skidded to the side and lost an arm during its collision with the stone wall. Harry stormed in, shadows and red strands rising and falling behind him in time to his agitated breathing. “It’s not here. He gave whatever it was to Voldemort—why the _hell_ am I always too late? Even now?”

Draco chose not to answer that. Instead, he gestured towards Moody, whose fake eye was rolling around and around in his skull. “He’s up, Potter. Now what?”

“Potter,” Moody hoarsely said. “How can you—” Then he stopped, and his fake eye did as well. He hunched so he could drag his arm into a semi-protective position before himself.

Harry’s face was a fascinating kaleidoscope during the eight or nine seconds it took for him to get himself under control. First it was startled, but that quickly passed to understanding, thwarted rage and finally to cynical humor. He stepped back to slouch against the doorframe. “Moody. Tell them I’m going to finish Voldemort, like I didn’t before. And tell them not to look for me. Ever.”

“You’d best not be thinking of sending me away with a miserable line like that,” Moody snarled. He hunched himself again and nearly fell off the table. Then the bastard glared at Draco—what had he been expecting? A helping arm? “Macnair was going to kill me, but then he changed his mind. Came in all hysterical, asking what we were up to, what kind of Dark Arts we’d gone to…that supposed to be you?”

“Probably.” Now Harry was a study in elaborate diffidence. He lifted his hands to wipe them with a rag, and for the first time, Draco noticed the blood staining them. “Come on, Moody. I think you can see what I mean.”

Moody snorted and wheezed. A little bit of fresh blood came dribbling out the corner of his mouth. “I can see you’re not the boy I thought you were.”

“No. No, I’m not.” The rag ripped in Harry’s hands, and he had to struggle to keep his voice steady. It went colder. “Goddamn it— _I can’t help now_. I—did Macnair say anything else? Did he mention what he’s been doing?”

Silence, but it wasn’t empty. That idiot Moody was trying to stare down Potter, which might’ve worked a bit when Harry was at Hogwarts but had no chance now. And Harry knew exactly what Moody was doing, and Draco could visibly see the frustration rising in Harry’s eyes. “For Merlin’s sake, Moody,” he started. “Whether or not how we go about things lives up to your morals is a little picky for this day and age, isn’t it? We’ll still—”

“He’d just come back from your daddy’s estate,” Moody spat out. His head creaked around so he could glower at Draco. “Setting some sort of trap for some new foe—guess he meant Potter, here. Something about a locket.”

Draco clenched his hands into fists and took a step forward, but a flicker of motion at the corner of his vision distracted him. It wasn’t a long distraction, but it was long enough for Potter to make Moody go _pop_ and disappear. “Well, _thank you_ , Harry,” Draco snarled. “Nice to see you still favor the weak-minded and useless.”

“It’s nice to see you still assume everyone’s on your side. ‘We’? Don’t start getting attached, Malfoy. That’s where they get you.” Harry raised an eyebrow and waved Draco towards the door. “Come on. Forget Snape—we’ll have to see your father first, after all.”

“What? Wait—you’re looking for some locket, and Macnair casually drops notice to Moody and Moody can tell you? Doesn’t that seem a little far-fetched to you?” Wonderful. Just when Draco was finally convinced to jump ship, his new ride turned out to have a leaky bottom. Fine, Harry was rattled by the news of his godfather, but couldn’t he keep his head together for a little longer? “It’s a _trap_! They told you it’s a trap! So it’s a—a—a double-trap, and damn it, don’t look at me like that. This is not about keeping you away from my father. You can go do whatever you want to him, for all I care! He and I haven’t been living on the same _planet_ for months now.”

Then Draco fell back against the table from lack of breath. His hand landed in something sticky and he grimaced, pulling it quickly back. He hit it with a cleansing spell and hoped to Merlin that Moody wasn’t carrying anything infectious.

“You done now?” Harry finally said. He seemed unnaturally calm again. “I know it’s a trap. I was hoping Voldemort would be that stupid and try this. Wouldn’t have bothered your father otherwise.”

“You mean you would have just killed him outright?” Draco asked. He was on the verge of laughing again. Before he could, he shoved his cigarette hard between his lips and took a long drag. “Oh, Merlin, it doesn’t even matter now. Fine, let’s go.”

* * *

Severus left Sirius sleeping with one house-elf to watch him and another posted outside the door. If the man was to wake, they were to slip him food laced with Sleeping Draught.

He Apparated to the Catacombs and walked in to find it strangely empty. The few people he did see were all minor officials or slaves, and they went about their tasks in a tense, expectant state. It reminded him of the last hour before a major battle, only as far as he knew, no major battle had been planned.

Lucius, he instantly thought. But it was probably too late for Severus to ascertain what Macnair really had been doing at Malfoy Manor, much less do anything about it, so Lucius would have to fend for himself. He told himself to be content that the lack of population in the hallways made the odds that Voldemort would hear of this visit much smaller, and continued on.

Ginerva had apparently been preparing for her next session when Severus knocked, for she answered the door with hair loose and only a loose dressing-gown on. Her eyes widened. “Snape! Sir, I had no idea—”

“And you’ll continue not to. In fact, you never met me or had the talk that we’re about to have,” Severus interrupted, pushing his way past her. He set up every possible security and privacy ward that he could think of before he turned around and faced her. “Miss Weasley. I will ask you this question once before I resort to Veritaserum. Are you in contact with the resistance?”

Her mouth rapidly worked and she withdrew so the shadows of her room shaded the top part of her face. She brought up one hand to her mouth with practiced coy surprise, which shaded the rest of her face.

Severus readied his wand. If he detected any wrongness, he’d have _Obliviate_ her at once and find another channel.

After some time, Ginevra lifted her eyes to him. They darted nervously all over before settling on his nose. She dropped her hand, and her posture changed to that of a belligerent prepared for the firing squad. “Sir. I was. I’m telling you this because you never wanted an appointment with me, and you’ve always called me ‘Miss’ even though—”

“Your reasons are not required. Neither are mine,” Severus harshly said. He watched her flinch, but almost immediately lift her chin. “What do you mean by ‘was’?”

Her eyes flicked around the room again. “Draco’s gone.”

That did make sense. Severus briefly regretted that he hadn’t kept a closer eye on the boy, but Draco’s early promise had deteriorated so very quickly that he never would have suspected. But damn it—this meant she’d be of no use to him, after all. “Thank you, Miss Weasley. I shan’t be taking up any more of—”

“Is this about Harry?” she abruptly asked. Then her eyes widened again and she backed up a step, clutching at her clothes. “Draco said—before he left—he said Harry’s alive. Please, sir, if I can help in any way…”

Something about her desperation was convincing. Not in the sense that he doubted her sincerity, but in the sense that it stirred an idea in his head, and that he thought the idea worth trying. “Miss Weasley…has Voldemort ever requested your services?”

A violent revulsion went through her face, but she managed to get herself under control. She nodded shortly. “In fact, I’m to…attend to him in a few days, at his private estate. But this is the first time, and…and sir, I thought he didn’t…is it really for that, or does he want to kill me?”

Rape her, torture her, and leave her broken body somewhere where Harry would get wind of it, though Severus decided against telling her that so explicitly. Voldemort always had been one for the tit-for-tat sort of warfare, and so far Harry had gotten away with murdering two high-level officers without a hand being raised against him. Severus supposed that after Harry had been worked into a fine rage, the idea would’ve been to bring out Black. _We’ve killed one, but you might be able to save the other_ , would the negotiating ploy.

“Not right away,” Severus told her. “There’ll be a chance—a very slight chance—that you’ll have time to help. You have to retrieve something from his chambers: a golden two-handled cup, engraved with the Hufflepuff crest. You may have to sacrifice your life for it.”

Ginevra didn’t appear to think it over. Her eyes showed fear, but also a kind of fierce, sudden joy. “That’s all right, sir. I’ve been waiting years for a chance to make use of it.”


	8. Suited Pairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get rearranged. And rearranged, as Voldemort and Harry head for a meeting.

“For WAR consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known.”  
\-- _Leviathan_ , Thomas Hobbes

* * *

He was a rat in a cage. Mere hours after the departure of Macnair’s team, Lucius’ lovely, beautiful home with its large windows and airy rooms was sickeningly stifled in silence. Even the house-elves had been taken away in case Harry Potter’s mysterious knack for earning their trust manifested itself once more, so when the light flowing through the windows became too much, Lucius had to tear the curtains from their ropes by himself. He went through an entire wing before frustration finally gave way to exhaustion, and then he staggered to his bedroom.

The windows there taunted him with their sweeping views of the countryside, so he ripped shut all the curtains before he crawled onto his bed in trousers and linen under-shirt. He laid on his back and stared at the ceiling, wondering when his dizzying descent had become so fast that he didn’t even feel the nausea anymore.

Of course, this had been entirely what Harry had been hoping for, and so whenever Potter got around to showing up, he’d be thrilled. Pity he’d have no one to meet him at the property line and invite him in; Lucius might be trapped, but he had no intention of acting the animal. He had watched the wards go up and he had gritted his teeth while a half-dozen wizards trained wands on him as Macnair had ripped Lucius’ own from him, and he knew beating his head against the wall would be a useless endeavor. He had accepted that some sort of accommodation with Potter would be necessary, but he was not about to go licking Harry’s shoes for it.

Narcissa’s parting shot had been to the effect that she was severing all ties to him, effective immediately, so that she would no longer have to sit about holding his hand. She’d be free to find Draco. Lucius had alternated between wanting to slap her and wanting to beg her to send him some news. In the end, he had coolly nodded and asked for the return of her wedding ring.

He turned over on his side and looked at his left hand, with its double-ringed finger. He did hope she found Draco, he decided. At least she cared about him in some fashion; Lucius didn’t trust Potter a moment with his son.

Somewhere along the line, the aches of pride and flesh caught up with him and lulled him into a sleep that was dreamless, but nevertheless filled with a sense of unease that never quite allowed rest to approach. He twisted and turned, once surfacing so near consciousness that he knew himself to be in bed, with a strong desire to rise, but could not force his body to obey him. His limbs were leaden and the more he struggled with them, the more they sank into motionless. Eventually he drifted back into the deeper reaches of sleep, still clawing at himself.

His back slowly warmed up, and somehow the warmth spread to his limbs so he could move a little. He stirred, encountered a resistance behind him that yielded slightly before becoming very firm, and sluggishly moved towards waking. Sensations took on the bizarre magnitude of dreams before scaling down to fit reality: the weave of the pillowcase beneath his cheek seemed to press into his skin so hard that he could count every thread, the sound of his breathing seemed to double.

His muscles were cramped, belatedly doing what he told them to do, so he stretched in an effort to loosen them. Oddly enough, his shirt continued to ride up even after he’d resettled on the bed. It grew fingers and scratched lightly at his chest before coiling on itself and splaying down the deep collar. Something hot and wet and thin lightly slapped the back of his neck, then began to slowly spin over his skin, and at that point Lucius’ eyes flew open.

In the same moment, the hand on his chest became the hand pinning his wrists to the mattress, and a second hand pulled his head back by the hair. “Good morning, Malfoy,” Potter purred. He pressed himself along the entire length of Lucius’ body as his nails dug into the flesh behind Lucius’ ear. “I see Voldemort wasn’t happy at all with his dead werewolf.”

“You’ll be bloody lucky if he doesn’t end up sending you your own,” said Draco. _Draco_.

Lucius sharply inhaled and tried to push himself upward without thinking. He was immediately jerked back down and rolled over so Harry could assault his throat; an initial stinging pain over his pulse slowly turned into a low throb that erratically tried to match the rhythm of footsteps approaching from the door. His voice stuck in his throat no matter how he willed words to emerge.

“After all, Voldemort apparently thinks the resistance is backing you, so—Merlin.” The footsteps stumbled back a bit from the bed. “Merlin. What the hell are you doing, Harry?”

At the same time, Harry rose so he blocked Lucius’ view of the proceedings, and he made sure it would stay that way by wrenching Lucius’ wrists above his head and then clamping his free hand on Lucius’ jaw. He yanked Lucius’ head upwards so something cold and very, very thin could snake over Lucius’ throat. It settled itself near the bite Harry had made, which Lucius could feel oozing blood, and a tiny ice-dagger of a tongue started to lap at the wound. “I already told you what,” Harry irritably said.

“Well, telling’s one thing, but this is—excessive.” The bed rocked as Draco leaned heavily against one of its posts. His voice was strained. “Merlin, Harry—just who are you trying to fuck with, anyway? Him or me?”

“Ever think it could be both?” Harry said. His shoulders suddenly dropped and he leaned towards Draco, eyes half-lidded and lips parted enough for his tongue to twine out, do a sensuous turn in the air and slip back into his mouth. He was still vibrating with tension, but now it was the tension of a confident predator waiting to spring, and not that of a desperate, wildly flailing soul. “Has that thought ever crossed your mind at all? You’re so damn egotistical, you know. You never did want to share anything. Food, honors…hell, even torture. That’s pretty damn twisted, even for you lot.”

Draco’s breath hitched. Lucius twisted harder at his arms, but only earned himself a tightening of the vise that saw his wrists pass from fiery pain to numbness. He attempted to pull up his knees and get enough leverage to shift Harry’s weight, but then the thing feeding at his neck stabbed deep into him.

It felt like an arrow of ice as it went in, but once it’d breached Lucius’ skin, it quickly flaked into a thousand shards, each one freezing down his veins and nerves with incredible speed. He was frozen in mid-gasp, and—

\--Lucius finished his gasp with a near-hysterical feeling of relief. He slumped back into the bed, then lifted his arms…his arms. He gouged his nails into the bed and clawed over onto his stomach, then into a sitting position. Strands of his hair flew about him and stuck to his face in a gauzy, annoying veil, but he didn’t waste time pushing them out of the way. He stared wildly about for the other two.

“I didn’t think you were _that_ far gone. Plus I thought you didn’t give a damn about your father,” Harry said. “Nice try, but that spell doesn’t work on me anymore.”

Lucius whipped around and around, but though he could hear Potter, he couldn’t see a trace of him or Draco in the room. The chill in his body ceased its slow recede and began to pool in his gut.

“…noticed…” Wherever he was, Draco could barely talk. His breath was ragged as a beggar’s clothes when it came at all, and it caught awkwardly every so often in the way that only a person being strangled could produce. “…bloody idiot, we came…trap…and you’re…trying to…to…

Something snatched Lucius’ gaze to the floor the next time he looked over the near side of the bed: Draco’s wand, fallen and rolled so it just peeked from beneath the bedskirt. Lucius threw himself to the very edge of the bed and grabbed it, then craned about to look at the ceiling.

Harry was on his hands and knees on it, so at ease in his improbable position that even his hair and clothing acted as if he were right-side up: levitating via normal magic never produced that effect. Draco, on the other hand, had his back to the ceiling and Harry’s hand wrapped tightly around his throat. He was yanking at Harry’s wrist, but in that position gravity was inexorably working against him.

“Trying to attract Voldemort’s damn attention so he’ll get here and I can get this over with,” Harry muttered. “Of course he’s going to expect me to maul your father first. How would I ‘find out’ where the locket’s at here?”

“It’s not here,” Lucius called up. The wand pressed hard up into his clenched fingers so it nearly bent the bones, but he didn’t dare risk any spell. He couldn’t. Even if he somehow found one that would work on Harry, he couldn’t risk hitting Draco, or not being able to levitate his son in time should Harry drop him. “Why would Voldemort leave that here, if he knows you’re looking for it?”

“…trap…” By now Draco’s face had gone from red to blue, and was now nearing bruise-purple. He weakly pulled at Harry’s arm, then twisted and attempted to throw off Harry.

Potter easily dodged and simply lifted his knee so Draco’s leg, formerly pinned, was suddenly free to dangle. The jerk of its weight caused a flash of pain to distort Draco’s face.

“It’s not here, damn it! Whatever you need, Draco doesn’t have it and you know that, so leave him—” Lucius was so intent on his son’s face that the blur of movement on the ceiling startled him into leaping back. Then he scrambled forward, realizing what had happened, and frantically cast a Levitation Charm at the thing falling from the ceiling.

Draco instantly stopped in mid-air, half-curled into a fetal position. He continued pulling his legs in towards himself and coughing so that when Lucius finally set him down, he was muffling his racking wheezes in his right knee.

“Of course it’s not.” When Lucius spun around, wand still up, Harry was leaning against the bedpost on the other side. He looked at the tip of the wand, which was shaking so much it swung in wide arcs, then contemptuously flicked his eyes up to Lucius. “Voldemort thinks I’m about as great an idiot as Draco does.”

“Then why the hell are we _here_?” Draco rasped, still coughing. A glance over one shoulder showed Lucius that Draco had recovered enough to sit up and sneer. “Wasting time? Or are you trying to make one of your points to me? I got the message the first time around when you gave it to Weasley, Potter: don’t get close to you.” He paused. “Actually, I think I got it back when Diggory got himself _Avada_ ’d.”

“Draco!” Lucius was torn between getting off the bed and slapping his tactless suicidal brat of a son and finally bending his head to beg Potter for mercy. He settled for staring at Harry’s face and hoping desperately that Harry wasn’t that offended.

Harry’s face had frozen briefly at the mention of Diggory’s name, but he relaxed almost at once. One corner of his mouth twisted upwards. “Well, I was beginning to think you didn’t give a damn about that. Given how you tossed yourself at me earlier and all.”

That rendered Lucius completely speechless. He lowered his wand and slowly turned back around to look at Draco, who by now had gotten to his feet. A well-defined bruise in the shape of a hand wound itself around Draco’s throat, which he was rubbing hard. Despite that, Draco stared back at Lucius with sullen defiance mixed into resentment. “Oh, what?” Draco snapped. “Thanks for catching me back there, father, but that sort of thing’s been a bit too infrequent lately for me to believe in it. Obviously I’ve got to look after myself now.”

“Not like that. You’re a _Malfoy_ \--”

“And we’re just higher-bred, I’ve come to think. You still sold us to Voldemort.” Draco angrily pulled at his clothes, rummaging inside of his coat. He came up with one of those disgusting Muggle cigarettes and stuck it between his lips. His eyes met Lucius’ and without looking away, Draco lit up. “So I was right. This was all just an object lesson.”

A sarcastic laugh from Harry, who’d slid one hand into his pocket and was leaning on that arm when Lucius looked at him again. “You’re amazingly self-centered, Draco. No, actually I did come here on business. I wasn’t expecting to get the locket—I was expecting to get Voldemort. After all this build-up, he’s going to want to see me himself, at the very least.”

Voldemort…because he’d had to have kept one part of his soul back, Lucius suddenly remembered. When he’d been reading, he’d glossed over that detail because he’d assumed Potter would collect all the Horcruxes before he went for that piece. But that didn’t necessarily have to happen; Harry could take on Voldemort and try to extract that fragment, and if he did, then Voldemort would have to break a Horcrux himself in order to reconstitute himself. “Then why bring Draco?” he asked.

Harry’s shrug was light, but his gaze on Lucius was heavy with meaning. “I don’t know. Why _would_ I bring your bloody annoying ferret of a son here?”

Lucius could guess. While Draco sputtered and snarled behind him, he looked down at the wand in his hands. He wanted to look at his son as well, but he’d already let Harry see enough of that. Bile rose in his throat, and when he swallowed it, it was replaced by a strange iciness.

He tossed the wand to Draco, who had to stop mid-rant to catch it. Out of the corner of his eye, Lucius could see Draco shifting his puzzled stare—at first on the wand—to him, but he ignored it as he slowly lowered himself onto his arms. The sheets had odd dark red spots on them, Lucius idly noted, and he belatedly remembered that he had a fresh cut on his neck. “Get him out of here before Voldemort comes. I’ll do whatever you require, but—”

“I think we already went over this,” Harry said, feigning boredom.

It was a transparent ploy, but Lucius’ nerves were so raw that they triggered a panic anyway. “Harry… _please_.”

“ ‘Harry’? Father, what the hell are you doing—” Draco’s voice whipped off, and Lucius jerked about just in time to see Draco tumble to the floor, half-covered in those monstrous thick shadows. Knocked out of his mouth, Draco’s cigarette hung momentarily in mid-air; before it had time to drop, one long tendril shot up to engulf it.

“I want you to do _only_ that, and not whatever else you’ve got planned,” Harry told Lucius. His eyes were red, but without any of the heat that was usually associated with that color. Instead they looked like spilled blood under a film of ice. “Got that?”

Lucius glanced at them, at the slowly writhing black mass on the floor, at Potter…he barely got his hysteria under control before it exploded. “Yes. Yes, now let him go, damn you!”

The shadows flattened as if they’d been hammered down, but they hadn’t gone completely down before Lucius was lunging at them.

He was roughly stopped and hauled back by the hair; Harry’s voice licked at his ear, warm with seething promises. “I sent him back to Remus Lupin—I _do_ keep my promises, you know. Now, where were we?”

Every shutter in the house suddenly snapped shut. The whole building shuddered with the force of it, and then continued to shake, while the air turned cold and _damp_. Lucius could feel the wards changing, parting before some great power’s approach.

“Ah,” Harry said. He let go of Lucius and stepped backwards, looking slowly around the room. “You know, this really is a nice house. I almost feel bad for what we’re about to do to it.”

* * *

Draco rolled and rolled, taking in great gulps of air till he was absolutely certain he was no longer suffocating. He hit a few things while he was at it: some moved, some didn’t. The very last one cursed, and then hands were trying to stop him and stretch him out at the same time.

He still had his wand. Thank Merlin for that, because then he could hex his way free and get to a wall he could lean on unimpeded while he finished his recovery. Thank Merlin, and damn his father because if there was anything Draco didn’t need, it was more help from that corner. Now what? Did his father think that was going to wipe out the last two years? Was he actually that idealistic beneath all the pureblood pride and lecturing on strategy and detachment?

Did Harry fucking _Potter_ think that was going to do it for them?

“—tell us what you’re doing here, or I’ll send you through the window for that—”

“Fred! Put your wand down!” ordered somebody. Granger. Oh, wonderful. “Draco—Draco, what are you doing here? What’s happened?”

Draco rubbed his eyes a last time before he opened them and took another look at the world. He appeared to be in a shack that’d been hastily built, then carefully barricaded. The floor was concrete and after some thought, he realized the bookshelves cramming the walls had been constructed from baggage racks: what was left of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

Granger stood closest to him, nothing but bloodshot eyes set above gaunt cheekbones; her frizzy hair was the most bountiful thing left to her. Weasley stood beside her, and behind him Draco could see…Lupin. He had to admit, Harry’s sense of humor had gotten sharper. “Well, your wonderful plan to use me as Harry-bait didn’t work. He tossed me out on my goddamned arse so he could fuck my father. Still think he’s salvageable, Lupin?”

So much blood drained from Weasley’s face that even his freckles started to fade; Granger merely looked as if she’d taken a slap to the cheek, but then, she’d always had better stuff to her than most of her pathetic friends. Lupin seemed on the verge of ripping out Draco’s throat, standing stock-still with fists clenching and unclenching against his hips.

If he wanted to, Draco wasn’t about to stop him. It’d certainly uncomplicated a lot, and given Draco’s mood right now, he would be perfectly happy to serve as an added load on Lupin’s burden of guilt. He got himself a fresh cigarette and snapped a flame across it. “Oh, and one other thing. Voldemort’s brought back Sirius Black. No, that’s not right. Voldemort and _Snape_ brought him back.”

“ _What_?” Lupin didn’t say it, or growl it. The closest description probably would be to say he took a great upwelling of rage and shock and pain and mashed it vocally into the air. His eyes went slightly golden.

Without missing a beat, Granger _Stupefy_ ’d him so he fell into Weasley’s arms, then spun to kick at Draco. “First you show up right after I’ve figured out how to let Lupin transform when it’s not the full moon, and then you say something like that. Get up, Malfoy. You’re not going to just sit there and laugh at us.”

“No. For once, you’re right about something, Granger—I’m not about to sit here,” Draco cordially replied. He pulled himself up and deliberately didn’t look to make sure he’d miss the books before he flicked the ash off his cigarette. That made Granger’s red face go a lovely enraged shade of puce. “So how about this time, you lot actually use me when I’m offering? What can I do? Aside from trying to chase your former golden boy, because let me say, he’s a complete lost cause.”

Bastard that he was, Draco thought again. But this should show Harry he wasn’t the only one that could set fires.

* * *

The Weasley girl would see to getting the Hufflepuff Horcrux. Though Severus did not put much stock in trust or idealism, he did in the kind of unreasoning fever he’d seen in her eyes. She’d hoped and hoped so much under such dark circumstances that her hope properly should have been shattered into a thousand pieces, or ground to powder. But instead it’d remained and gone…not quite rotten, but certainly tainted.

That left two more, which Severus considered at length once he’d returned to his estate. He had no idea where the locket was, but he could make some conjectures. Voldemort would want to keep it close at hand, considering how the ones he’d hidden far away from him had been taken and destroyed. He wouldn’t have it anywhere that strong wizards would frequent, since even if they didn’t know what it was, they still might be able to sense its power and come probing.

One thing Severus did know, despite what he’d told Lucius and much as he hated thinking about it: Voldemort didn’t wear the locket. He didn’t keep it in his private chambers. The only other place Voldemort forbade any Death Eater to venture was the Hall of Prophecy, which seemed like a likely hiding place for a small thing like a locket. If it was the locket that was kept in there; it could just as well be the other one.

It would have helped if Severus at least knew what the other one was, but he didn’t have time to moan about that. He’d been heading for the liquor cabinet, needing a bit of something after his interview with Ginevra, but instead he changed directions. If he remembered correctly, he’d left his notes in his bedroom.

When he entered, Black was a huddle half-on and half-under the blankets. The man wasn’t quiet either, but continually moaned, twitched, and mumbled to himself. Severus looked over him long enough to determine that the Sleeping Draughts would keep Black down for at least another two hours before settling at his desk.

It didn’t take long before a pattern began to emerge; Severus’ exhaustion the week before must have kept him from seeing it, because it really was quite simple. Six Horcruxes and seven soul-fragments were the ideal number. One of the Horcruxes had been Tom Riddle’s grandfather’s ring, one had been Riddle’s diary, and one had been Harry. That left three, two of which were known to be relics of the founders of Hogwarts. A really ideal arrangement would have been to have four relics, one for each founder…

…on the other hand, Potter might have served a dual purpose there. But the genealogies that would prove Severus’ guess right had been lost long ago and he hadn’t the time to look for him. At any rate, it was reasonable to presume that the last Horcrux was a relic of Rowena Ravenclaw’s. That was one pattern.

The other pattern was even more ancient than the Hogwarts’ founders, and rather dubious. At least, it seemed so, but Severus was finding that things he’d assumed not possible even with magic were entirely within the realm of possibility. Trelawney might’ve been a quack and had biased him towards her field, but that hardly meant divination had no truth to it.

So, the Tarot. Four suits: cups, swords, wands, and coins or pentacles. The cup was obvious, and the locket could fit the coin/pentacle category with little stretching—during Salazar Slytherin’s age, jewelry _was_ how people carried their fortunes. Coins were scarce, and bracelets or other adornments were harder to steal in any case. Anyway, some old tarot decks didn’t even clearly depict the suit as a coin, but merely a roundish disk that would fit the locket’s description.

The sword would have fit better if Severus didn’t know that the resistance still had Godric’s sword, but he supposed calling Harry a ‘sword’ would be metaphorically appropriate. Potter certainly had the double edges of a broadsword. That left wands. It couldn’t be the wand Voldemort actually carried, since Severus had seen Potter’s wand often enough, and had heard the peculiar bit of trivia concerning that one and Voldemort’s enough times from Albus. Voldemort’s wand was too young.

Severus rested his arms on the desk and massaged his temples, which were beginning to ache. On his way out, he’d heard the real details of Lucius’ imprisonment and so he couldn’t risk contacting him again—besides, Lucius probably had no better idea than Severus did. Anomalies…he needed an anomaly. He—

The Mark suddenly flared and he grabbed his arm, then his head. He was dimly aware of coming within a hairsbreadth of smacking his forehead on the desk before he caught himself. The pulse was pounding in his ears, and it took all his willpower to open his mind just enough to make Voldemort think he was seeing everything without giving away how powerful an Occlumens he was. _My lord?_

_Severus. Potter has attacked again, and left Macnair and his entire household dead._ The seething rage in Voldemort’s sending suddenly dropped away, but the thread of savoring anticipation more than filled the space. _But it seems he’s too sure of himself, and has run right into my trap. I’ll be bringing him to you after I interview him, so have Black ready._

Black had been among the living for barely a day, Severus wanted to snap. Of course, he buried that thought deep behind his mental shields and projected an air of fearful obedience. _Yes, my lord._

Voldemort withdrew much faster than he usually did, which was an indication of how eager he was to take on Potter. Severus privately thought that the Dark Lord was the one that was too sure of himself; the Harry now walking the earth seemed to have a considerably better sense of strategy than before, and this so-called trap was too obvious.

“What the hell did he mean by that?” said a hoarse voice.

Damn. The summoning must have also woken up Black, hypersensitive as he now seemed to be to Voldemort. After locking away his notes, Severus got out of his chair and turned around.

Black had dragged himself into a sitting position with the sheets puddled about his waist. His chest was scars and ribs so prominent that they seemed about to burst through his skin. “Snape? What’s he mean? He’s going after Harry?”

“Are you a little more grounded in time now?” Severus dryly asked. He rounded the bed and pulled open a cabinet to the side, then began pulling out potions. Even they wouldn’t be able to make Black look as pretty as before, but they’d be able to ease him out of ‘repulsive.’ And that was a necessity, since Severus’ antipathy for the man alone was going to be difficult to surmount without adding appearance to the negatives.

“Don’t change the damn subject. You said—earlier.” Frowning, Black glanced down at his hands. “Earlier. You did. You said Harry was alive.”

Severus rolled up his sleeves, selected an empty flask, and began carefully mixing potions. “I said he came back. The verdict is still out on whether he’s a living being now.”

That puzzled Black enough to keep him silent till Severus finished, albeit with the occasional sharply-drawn breath. When Severus turned around, Black was staring with unfocused eyes at the wall to Severus’ left. A cold chill slithered through Severus.

“Black.” The man’s head moved a little, but his pupils remained wide and dark, engulfing what little color his irises had retained. “Black,” Severus repeated more sharply. “What’s the matter? Do you hear him again?”

A furrow grooved its way between Black’s eyebrows, and he finally turned to face Severus. His eyes slowly focused, and then he abruptly shook himself. He laid down on the bed, then rolled over to present his back as Severus walked towards him.

Severus stopped at the side of the bed and waited a few moments. “Black, turn around and drink this. I’m giving you one chance before I force it into you, and that’s only because I don’t want to ruin a good set of sheets on account of you.”

Some gravelly noise escaped Black, and after a moment Severus understood it was a laugh. But the man did roll over, and he looked up at Severus with near-mad amusement sparking his eyes. “Oh, oh, oh. The truth outs. That’s why you—cold, frigid Slytherin that you are—always threw a fit whenever I came around.”

After reviewing his words, Severus barely decided that breaking Black’s neck was not an option. It’d only prove the idiot right, which he decidedly wasn’t. “Think whatever ridiculous nonsense you want, Black, but—”

Before Severus could finish, Black sat up in a jangling flow of jutting bony limbs and the weird deliberate grace of the severely malnourished, who had to conserve every bit of energy. He took the flask and drained it without hesitation, then handed it back to Severus. His eyes burned into Severus’. “Think whatever _you_ like, Snape. But if I’m confused about some things, I do remember this: I was dead. And I remember you wouldn’t ever do something about that unless you wanted into Harry’s good graces, and to do that you’ve got to get in my good graces.”

Severus curled his lip and stiffly spun on his heel. He walked towards the door with every intention of taking the flask to his laboratory, cleaning it, and then clearing his mind by brewing something complicated and poisonous.

“Wait.” The voice that called out to him was a far cry from the thready but mocking, defiant one that had just confronted him. When Severus turned back, Black was swaying with eyes going in and out of focus. The other man wrapped one arm around himself, then moved his hand up to drag through his hair. “Wait. Don’t—damn it, what’s going on? I can’t—how many times has Voldemort died? Is this the time where he faces that one—what’s his name—Quirrell—just…for Merlin’s sake, Snape. Tell me something. Anything.”

The ‘please’ never made it out of Black’s mouth. Never out of his throat, but the word hung in the air between them nevertheless.

After a moment’s thought, Severus continued his walk to the door while Black descended into a torrent of vicious swearing. He opened it, called for a house-elf, and sternly ordered it to leave it just inside the laboratory door, and to not go an inch further inside. Then he turned around and got onto the bed. As Black was lifting his head to stare wide-eyed, Severus took him by the arm and hauled him forward.

Black collapsed as if he were made of paper, his fingers clawing into Severus’ back and shoulders while his chin gouged a short, shallow groove in Severus’ chest.

“Your godson went to hell,” Severus said. “He had a piece of Voldemort’s soul in him—Voldemort split it to make himself immortal. But the spell for it came from Lucifer, and Lucifer has sent Harry back to collect the rest of the pieces. Judging from what I’ve seen so far, Harry apparently had a strange affinity for hell, because he’s doing his damnedest to recreate it here.”

Warm breath passed from Black’s mouth and nose through Severus’ clothing. Then teeth followed, but withdrew so Black could lift his head. “You bastard.”

“If you want to see Harry again, you’ll have to deal with me,” Severus added. “Consider it.”

Black’s face convulsed, but he strangled whatever reply he was going to make. The strength of his grip on Severus never wavered between when he’d first grabbed Severus and now, when he pressed his face back into Severus’ chest. He kneaded Severus’ shoulders, his own jerking up and down every so often with a sharp breath, while Severus waited.

Eventually Black lifted his head to show determined eyes. Determined and…but they went out of focus before Severus could decide what the other emotion in them was. He sucked in his breath and his pupils refocused. “All right, then. You fucking son of a bitch—all right, we’ll do that.”


	9. Book of Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Voldemort finally meet each other.

“Invincibility depends on one’s self; the enemy’s vulnerability on him. It follows that those skilled in war can make themselves invincible but cannot cause an enemy to be certainly vulnerable.”  
\--Sun Tzu, _The Art of War_

* * *

Once Voldemort had entered the building, Harry either forgot or didn’t care that Lucius was still there. He walked out into the hall and had reached the top of the stairs by the time Lucius, still reeling from Draco’s abrupt removal, convinced his body to move after him. When Lucius called out, Harry didn’t even appear to hear him, but instead walked on with his hands in his pockets, slightly pushing back his coat. He strolled down the staircase with all the nonchalance of a king entering his court.

The temperature of the air continued to drop and the lights, both magical and mundane, slowly dimmed. Lucius watched as the three-candle fixtures lining the hallway self-extinguished themselves, then slowly came back to life, but only with one flame per fixture. Eventually he noticed also that the dimming was actually occurring in the _opposite_ direction to which Harry was walking, whereas the candles that were relit occurred in the same direction.

The entire building was deathly silent, and when Lucius looked up at the walls, he didn’t see a single face in any of the portraits. One large painting of a country scene normally showed peasants laboring beneath the stern eye of a horseman, while more horsemen carried out a bloody hunt in the background, but right now the only signs of life Lucius saw was a herd of cows in the upper right corner. They had backed themselves into a ring with horns out, but even they didn’t dare make a sound.

On his way out, Lucius had remembered to grab his shoes and cane, and he attempted to jam his feet into his shoes as he hurried after Potter. However, it soon became clear that that was impossible and he’d have to stop to do it properly. He wavered for a moment, torn between his desire not to miss anything no matter how damaging and his desire to keep up appearances. Even in the Middle Ages, Malfoys had never gone into battle barefoot, as the portraits could testify to.

As they could have; it was a ridiculous concern to have, but it was a deeply-ingrained one and at this point, Lucius was clutching at any fragments that still remained. He stopped and put on his shoes.

When he looked up again, Harry was gone. Lucius heard a sharp inhale, then realized it had originated from himself. He felt a curious sense of loss and insecurity—relatively speaking, since he hadn’t felt quite safe since he’d made that damned trip to Hogwarts’ ruins. The halls suddenly seemed abnormally high and empty.

He slowly turned in place and his eyes caught something. The air was still, but the chill in it seemed to slip beneath Lucius’ clothing and creep up his stomach and back. He pulled at the sides of his shirt and then the tails, but his shaking hands only succeeded in pulling his shirt entirely out of his trousers. In the end he wrapped an arm around himself, holding the folds of fabric to his skin, and that seemed to slow the icy crawling.

Lucius turned around to face where Harry had been last and he saw it again: some sort of flicker, like the slap of a robe rounding a corner, at the edge of his vision. He began to walk down the hall, pretending to face directly ahead. “Harry?”

The flicker turned into a large patch of black that swept over the walls and floors towards Lucius, who instinctively stumbled back from it. Its blackness was a thick, dull blackness without any kind of reflection or sheen to it; all light that fell across it simply vanished. It grew tendrils that sluggishly tried to curl around Lucius’ feet, but those seemed to struggle to make headway into the lighted space.

Light flared behind Lucius and he glanced around in time to see the candles in the holders right above him go off like firecrackers. He looked down again and saw the black tendrils whipping back as if they’d been injured.

_Luciussss…_

It wasn’t Harry’s voice. It also sounded as if it were coming from the black patch, which was confirmed a moment later when the blackness rose as if someone had pinched it in the middle and raised it like a dropcloth. The silhouette of Voldemort emerged and beckoned.

“My lord?” Lucius said.

But it was beckoning in the wrong direction, motioning to the empty space to its right. The wrongness of that made itself apparent and the shape swung itself around, but though it was now facing in the right direction, Lucius still had the impression it wasn’t _seeing_ him. He moved backwards and to the left without making a sound, and the silhouette didn’t seem to register the movement at all.

_Lucius, return to your master. I am angry with you, but I—_

“You can’t even find him, can you? Him or Draco. I bet that really gets under your skin,” Harry suddenly said.

Lucius turned around again. The railing that led to the staircase had previously been empty, but now he could see Potter perched on it with one hand casually down for balance.

The silhouette stilled briefly before abruptly and quickly flowing _past_ Lucius to confront Potter, who was maliciously grinning. “So where’s your feared Dark Mark now?” he jeered. “Your damned pet Malfoy is standing right by you and you can’t even sense him. Not unless I let you.”

He was trying to bait Voldemort into attacking first. That was blatant enough, but even more blatant was how well it was working. _Harry…Potter. I see you were more resourceful than I thought. Though still not very original—did you suggest it before or after my own strategy was discussed?_

Harry’s face convulsed with too many emotions, but he quickly got himself under control. He hopped off the banister and slowly walked in a wide spiral around Voldemort, one hand in his pocket and the other restlessly flicking at his leg. His eyes were unnaturally bright and they at first appeared to be black, but after watching them carefully, Lucius decided they actually created that illusion by switching between red and green very quickly.

_What is your business here?_ Voldemort went on. _What message do you carry from your…master?_

“Oh, great. You think we’re still at the bargaining table.” The sneer on Harry’s face twisted into a snarl. His fingers curled up tightly against his hip, then suddenly flipped downward in a rigid splay.

At the same time, every single candle in the hall blazed with a needle-thin, foot-tall flame. The light soared and invaded the darkness coating the walls so it shuddered and recoiled on itself; Voldemort’s silhouette dropped flat, then disintegrated into a thousand pieces that quickly dissolved in the light.

“Fire,” Lucius blurted out. “How incredibly fitting, even if you’ve switched sides.”

Harry shot him an annoyed but distracted look, clearly preoccupied with other concerns. “The Devil is _Lucifer_ , you know. And I thought you were going to hold up a little longer before your mind started giving way—”

He suddenly spun about as a surge of blackness welled up from the carpet beneath his feet, one arm flying out in a summoning. In response, streams of shadows flew from the ceiling and the walls to crash headlong into the blackness; they were thinner and lighter in comparison, and their strength actually seemed to depend somewhat on the strength of the light. Another piece of darkness engulfed one of the candle-holders nearest Harry and the shadows, which had been gaining the upper hand, fell back as if weakened. Some vanished altogether with the light that had helped cast them.

A flap of the blackness managed to cover Harry’s leg. He jerked free a moment later, throwing himself into a roll and agilely coming back up on his feet, but a tiny red spray had followed his movements. When he stood up, Lucius could see a slash in Harry’s trousers mending itself.

Lucius himself had tried to back away as soon as the fighting had started, but he’d run up against first shadows snaking back and forth across the hall, then a wide spread of blackness. Even if Voldemort couldn’t pinpoint Lucius’ exact location, he apparently could deduce enough from sound to come uncomfortably close.

The entire hall suddenly whited out in brilliant light; Lucius instinctively dropped to the ground. Intense heat scorched over his back, and then the unmistakable crackling of fire sprang up all around him. The house rumbled in protest, and deep inside Lucius was screaming in outrage at the violation of his property, but he had no time to dwell on it.

“You fucking bastard—there you are!” Harry shouted.

When Lucius looked up, it was just in time to see Harry take a swan-dive off the stairway railing. He scrambled to his feet, narrowly avoiding a patch of falling, flaming ceiling, and ran to the railing. All around him, the blackness was in tatters, but it was still locked in a vigorous struggle with the shadows, now given new if erratic strength by the leaping outbreaks of fire.

He hit the railing palms-first, leaving his wrists first numb and then shocked with pain, and nearly went over the edge before he finally stopped himself. Down below, Voldemort—the real Voldemort, and not merely a proxy he’d summoned up—lay spread-eagled on the floor, his robes billowing out around him. Potter was on top of him and had his wand-hand pinned down, but Lucius couldn’t see what Harry was doing—

Blackness surged at the pair from all points and simply rolled Harry up in it, yanking him off Voldemort so Lucius could look straight down into the mangled hole Harry had made in Voldemort’s chest. Shreds of flesh hung from rib-tips that had been broken out of the way, and…but it was all grey. Grey and bloodless and dull except for something silvery gleaming from the very bottom.

Then Voldemort furiously threw his robes over himself and stared upward, eyes punching through Lucius as if he were a sheet of paper. The corners of his lip slowly pulled upward, and just as slowly, the Mark on Lucius’ arm began to burn. Lucius grabbed onto the railing and gritted his teeth, but the pain mounted and first one knee slipped, then the other. His heels scrabbled briefly before he fell so his chin hit the railing. He barely kept his head up enough to see Voldemort raise his wand towards him.

“ _Avada K_ \--” Voldemort started.

There was an explosion to the side: the weakly-moving lump in the middle of the blackness suddenly erupted and pieces of the black flew outward to sizzle against walls and tile. Where they hit something flammable, it immediately burst into flames. At the same time, something happened to Voldemort that slammed him backwards into the front doors so he clutched at his chest and doubled over.

Opposite him, Harry swayed on his feet. Lucius could see little save for the top of his head, but Harry didn’t seem to be in much better shape; the excruciating torture of Lucius’ Mark continued unabated.

“I don’t think your master will appreciate such precipitous independent action,” Voldemort hissed.

“And I don’t think you get it.” The laugh Harry made was raw, animalistic, and took no account of the situation in its unmodulated tone. “He’s not been answering, has he? That’s because he’s _done_ waiting. No more half-measures.”

Voldemort jerked up his wand and the shadows behind Harry rallied into a gigantic arch over him that blocked Lucius’ view. His vision was beginning to fade out anyway from the pain, so he allowed himself to drop. Then he struggled to the staircase and forced enough of his body over the edge so that gravity would carry him down.

He tumbled over five or six steps before he slammed up against the railing. Lucius hooked his hand through it, then used the railing as a springboard from which to fling himself backward as the world violently came apart.

* * *

“So this will take me somewhere safe that I can leave the cup,” Ginevra said. She cupped the pair of earrings in one hand and poked gingerly at them with the index finger of her other hand. Her eyebrow arched. “They’re a little on the plain side.”

Severus resisted the urge to slap her. Working this Portkey so soon after he’d brought back Black had nearly killed him, and even with all the potions in his possession, he’d only managed to restore himself to a half-conscious state. His head was pounding and it was an exhausting effort to merely keep his eyes focused on the Weasley girl. “Has the Dark Lord ever expressed a taste for the ostentatious when it comes to his whores?”

“Well, none of them have ever come back alive so I wouldn’t know.” The bite in Ginevra’s reply was sharp enough to attract Severus’ attention. But the girl was already putting the earrings on, so it appeared that whatever her misgivings, she still was wholeheartedly interested in participating in this operation. “Where will I go?”

“Somewhere Voldemort cannot reach, and where Harry probably will go, at some point. But I cannot say whether your friends in the resistance will be able to reach you,” Severus said. Actually, he knew quite well that they wouldn’t be, and that had been part of why he’d chosen Grimmauld Place. If Harry was using the place, then Severus’ gesture should convince Potter of Severus’ sincerity long enough for there to be a conversation. If Harry wasn’t, then Severus would have one more card to play against Potter in order to ensure his own survival.

Ginevra glanced up at Severus. Her perfectly-painted, scarlet lips twisted in a knowing smile, while her eyes were a study in fanatical dedication. “He’s only calling me because he wants to hurt Harry. So I’ll die by myself, is what you’re saying.”

“The vast majority of people die alone, no matter what their circumstances,” Severus said. He stepped back and attempted to use his stare to imbue her with some sense of this mission’s delicacy and importance. If they were all very, very lucky, she wouldn’t let her enthusiasm overwhelm herself and tip off Voldemort beforehand. She needed to remain the downtrodden, warped whore, and not suddenly burst into a last revival of the old—Severus suppressed a sneer—Gryffindor spirit.

His Mark ached, as it often did when he’d pushed himself too far. Sometimes he thought that even if the day came when his arm was once again a blank page, it’d still ache in that spot. The Mark had long since changed from a symbol and a link into an open sore.

“Thank you, Professor,” she said, tipping up her head. She did that with an unconscious coyness so a tendril of carefully-curled hair fell artfully across her wide, pretty eyes. Perhaps there was hope for her, after all.

Severus withdrew to the door.

“Professor?” Ginevra’s hard pose cracked a little. “Will you—will someone tell Harry?”

It was all Severus could do not to laugh at her. Instead he nodded gravely and slipped his hands inside his sleeves. “He’ll know.”

He would, but whether he acted on said knowledge or shoveled it away in the heap of things that no longer mattered to him was a question for debate, if one ever was. Severus’ money was on the latter.

The pain hit Severus in mid-transit, and he arrived at his estate in a moaning, pathetic crumple. He’d barely dragged himself inside and up part of the staircase before a second wave hit, and that one was so horrific that his body, used to abuse as it was, simply refused to deal with it. He passed out.

When he woke, he was lying on a sofa. Sirius Black perched on the arm and stared down at him, eyes expressionless and hands occasionally flipping Severus’ wand into the air. “You cut off some of my hair,” Black said.

Severus drew in a slow breath and spent some time assessing his condition. He no longer hurt, but he was aware of a certain…lack, and a dread of that. It was an oddly familiar feeling. “You should have been asleep.”

“I was asleep. I think. See, the thing is, I’m not really sure where my head is anymore. When I’m awake, I’m asleep, and when I’m asleep…I see you snipping at my hair. You’re always skulking around us, but I never knew your perversions went to that,” Black sneered. Then he blinked, looking confused, and shook himself. “Wait. I mean you _were_ always doing that.”

The lack was Voldemort, Severus suddenly understood. And the reason for the familiarity was that this feeling was the same one that had accompanied the years when the Dark Lord had been weak and in hiding, but still able to manage some connection to his followers. “You’re in extremely poor condition, Black. If you’re to be of any use at all—”

“—it’ll be due to your potions, and of course you need bits of me in order to specialize said potions.” Black’s lip curled. He looked down at the wand he held, then carelessly tossed it at Severus. “Here. You might as well have it—your goddamn _furniture_ tried to hex me when I came out to see who was moaning so much, and it looks like that doesn’t work on me now.”

“That’s to be expected. My furnishings protect against living intruders, and you no longer quite fit into that category. You do, however, fall into several categories of Dark Creatures, and you’ll find that spells designed for them still apply,” Severus replied. He took relish in seeing comprehension, then regret and resentment bloom on the other man’s face. Of course Black still thought himself invincible and was consequently careless towards his enemies.

After a moment, Black shrugged and leaned back so he could swing his legs over the sofa arm and let them dangle. His shoulders fell into a hunch that was…had not been natural before, but apparently was now. “Thanks, Snape. It’s nice to know you still think I’m a magical dunce—you don’t need my damn hair for your potions. You could’ve gotten my spit or blood and that would work better. Also, you still curse like the devil when a Charming spell doesn’t go your way.”

Severus winced, though not at the gist of Black’s jab. If Black had gained preternatural awareness of what happened around him, then it stood to reason that he’d have overheard Severus making the earrings. Next time, Severus would move his operations to the basement level no matter how inconvenient that was. “I was constructing a Portkey to that grotesque property of yours at Grimmauld Place. It was still in Harry’s possession when he died, and I suspect he might revisit it at some point.”

Black turned around and looked at Severus, and the burn of hope in his eyes was only slightly less disturbing than it had been in the Weasley girl’s. “Did it work?”

“No. Something’s happened to the property—I can’t get access to it at all,” Severus said. He wasn’t lying—he hadn’t been able to. But he had been able to send things to the house using Black’s hair, and so he believed Harry was specifically blocking him.

Black looked away. A strange noise came from him, and after a second, Severus understood the man was grinding his teeth. “I don’t fucking trust you, you know. I think you’re lying, I think you’re leaving things out, and most importantly, I think you’re just a fucking cruel git who likes toying with people.”

Severus didn’t bother answering. He started to pull his robes back into shape. He also contemplated leaving, but he wasn’t certain that his body would support that sort of effort yet and he wasn’t about to fall in front of Black, of all people.

“But you know what I do believe?” Suddenly Black clambered down from his perch, elbows and knees moving rapidly and without apparent difficulty, but with an awkwardness that was discomforting to watch. He grabbed Severus’ shoulder and pulled Severus around to face him; his pupils drifted wide, then abruptly focused tightly on Severus. “That Harry’s alive, and that I’m only getting to him through you. You know why?”

“I’m sure you’re about to inform me no matter my reply,” Severus said. He intended his tone to be dry, but the mad intensity of Black’s eyes partially startled him out of his resolution.

Black grinned. “Because you were _scared_ when you said that. Whatever Harry is now, he scares the hell out of you.”

“He should chill your blood, if you had any sense,” Severus snapped. He attempted to shake off the other man, but Black only clung tighter. Then, of all things, Black attempted to shove his head into Severus’ neck.

His other hand clamped around Severus’ thigh. His nails had been tended to by the house-elves, but they still managed to slice through the heavy fabric of Severus’ trousers. “Stop it, you greasy son of a bitch,” Black muttered. “Not going for your jugular. Not this time. I’m just…you’re _warm_. And you make sense, though that’s not pleasant.”

“I imagine it wouldn’t be for you. You always did like to live in fantasies.” Severus stopped struggling, but remained stiff and unyielding. Black’s breath was hot and shallow on his neck, and Black’s hand on his thigh was a bitter mockery of all the things Severus had once hoped to win through his allegiance with Voldemort. Acceptance and the softer emotions…foolish. “Get off, Black.”

“Better learn to call me Sirius, if you want to be convincing.” The other man shifted so his mouth brushed Severus’ throat—an accident, possibly. Hopefully. But then Black moved again and quite deliberately ran his mouth over the side of Severus’ jaw till it was over Severus’ lips. He caught Severus’ skin with his teeth and his tongue was wet and hurried and surprisingly unskilled: raw and jagged, reduced to the bare tatters of the man. “I want to see _Harry_.”

Something along this line had been precisely what Severus had intended, but now that he was confronted with it, he found himself reluctant. The next time Black came at him, he turned his head away.

The other man laughed and dropped his bony chin on Severus’ shoulder. “You bloody coward. You never could look it straight on—doesn’t matter whether which side it was for. You can’t fucking face up to it.”

“You have, you weak-minded fool. And Albus is dead,” Severus snapped.

As he’d hoped, Sirius went stiff, then drew away with a snarl. The other man began to spit out one of his usual platitudes, but then he stopped. His eyes unfocused, but it was not the same as the other times—the lines of his face didn’t fall into confusion. “Yeah, he’s dead. And you’ve come crawling back again anyway, but he’s not here. Stuck in the past, Snape?”

Severus stared at him. Then he knotted his hand in Sirius’ hair and yanked the other man over. He tasted blood, and he couldn’t help lapping up some before he pushed Black off of him. He stalked out of the room to the accompaniment of Black’s ragged, mocking laughter.

* * *

Draco took his cigarette out of his mouth and stared at the inch-long ash on it. He tapped it off, stuck it back between his lips and took out his pack. Once again, he was down to the last one and no one near him seemed to have any. Granted, he’d been sitting in Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters for several days now and that made sense, but it was still damned inconvenient.

Granger slapped down her book. “Draco? Draco, are you listening to me?”

He probably didn’t have any chance of getting a fresh pack till he went out on some mission and could nip off to the Muggle shops, but chances of that happening any time soon looked rather slim. “What, Granger?”

“You haven’t been. This is _important_.” Previously Draco hadn’t had to work much with Granger, and now he saw that that had indeed been a blessing. It didn’t matter how the war had gone or to what acts of desperation the resistance had been pushed—Granger still was a pushy know-it-all. “You can’t just raise the dead. Not like they were before, anyhow—however Harry came back, he couldn’t have come back human.”

Biting back a sigh, Draco slowly dragged on his current cigarette. He tried to hold in the smoke for as long as possible, but eventually he had to let it out and lift the cig to his lips again. A gold gleam on the back of his hand caught his eye when he did. “Preaching to the converted and damned, Granger.”

“And what he _can_ come back as is extremely limited. From what you and the others have told me—”

The Black signet ring. Well. How convenient. And in Draco’s mind’s eye suddenly came the image of dozens of fresh packs in that drawer in the bedroom Harry had appropriated…why had Potter had those on hand, anyway? “Has it occurred to you that we’re dealing with powers that aren’t in your damned books? And believe me, I’ve read far ahead of you when it comes to the Dark Arts.”

“That might’ve been true then, but it’s been a while, _Malfoy_.” Granger’s tone could have fried a salamander’s egg, or doubled as a stiletto. When Draco looked up, she fixed him with bloodshot but _cold_ eyes. She tapped one long, dirty, chipped nail against the table with deliberate force. “A while, and a war. I’ve gone beyond books.”

For the moment, Draco decided the better course was not to question her directly on that odd comment, and to do investigation later, if he ever had the time. “Right. Potter’s weird.”

“Harry is probably a death,” Granger primly said. The arch of her eyebrow was considerably looser, and her laugh looser still. She smiled like a wounded tiger. “No, that’s not on the list of Dark Creatures. But it’s in folklore—sometimes we Mudbloods retain things you purebloods like to sweep under the curtain. We’ve got a saying: the only sure things are death and taxes. Well, death and taxes have other similarities, like both requiring collectors.”

Draco sat back and smoked the last of his cigarette, then relit the last one he had left. “But he’s being controlled, apparently.”

“That’s one reason why he must be avoiding us. See, he’ll be released after he completes his task, even if he’s under contract to the Devil himself, because you can’t control death for long. But he’ll still be what he is. He died once.” Granger’s smile died and she looked down. Then she put up her hand and rested her face in it. “He can never be Harry Potter again.”

After a moment, her shoulders jumped slightly and Draco immediately got up. The sound of his shoes on the concrete neatly covered up her sob. “Fascinating. Be right back, Granger. Need some air.”

He walked out, pitching his butt into a trashcan as he went, and as soon as he was on the small square of free platform that was left, he twisted the ring.

To be honest, Draco hadn’t expected it to work. He’d mainly tried it because he didn’t need to deal with weepy Granger, or yet another revelation about Potter’s brand-new state and it offered a distraction…but it did more than that. He was sucked in by the center and one disorienting second later, he popped softly into the foyer of number twelve, Grimmauld place.

Someone was on the stairs, tumbled over them in a heap of bright silks and blood still fresh enough to be bright scarlet. Because of that, Draco didn’t understand that the hair was naturally red till he’d knelt down and turned the body over. He winced.

One eye blinked blindly up at him, its iris shattered; Ginny’s other eye was completely gone. The less said about the rest of her, the better.

“Draco…” Merlin knew how she was making her mouth work, but it sounded horrible. “Draco…cup…for Harry. Tell him…missed him so.”

And then she was dead.

After a moment, Draco looked at her hand—or what was left of it. He grimaced as he unbuttoned his cuff and pulled it up, then pried the golden goblet out of the mess of flesh and pulped bone and silk scraps. It wasn’t all that large, and while it bore the Hufflepuff crest, didn’t seem too extraordinary. And yet…Ginny had obviously died to get it, and in doing so had somehow ended up here, where no one was supposed to be able to get to save for Harry and Draco. Though Draco doubted that would last; Harry might have been too busy to take care of that before, but now he would. Draco wouldn’t have time to clean up the visible traces, let alone wipe the place so Harry would never know. If that was even possible, given what Harry might be.

He miniaturized the cup and tucked it into an inner pocket, then stood up. Draco started to step over Ginny, then looked back down. That eye of hers…he leaned down and pushed what he hoped was her eyelid over it, then nipped upstairs just long enough to grab several packs. It was fitting, he figured, that he’d have one of Harry’s cigarettes in his mouth while he carried her body back to her family. And if he dropped ash…well, then, he couldn’t hide so he might as well leave a calling-card. Hello, Potter—sorry you missed this one too, but look, _I_ was here.

A moment later, Draco was back on Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters with Ginny’s corpse in his arms. She completely ruined his suit.

* * *

Lucius was in the bathroom redressing himself after a shower when the door slowly opened. He flinched back and his hand reflexively went out for his wand—which he still didn’t have, and damn Macnair to hell for that. Preferably whatever part had spat Potter back out.

“You’re up,” he said.

Harry leaned in the doorway, dressed in black trousers and casual black button-down shirt, of which he had the tails pulled out. When Lucius had dragged him out of the Manor, his clothes had been shredded and Lucius hadn’t had the resources to buy new ones, nor the opportunity—some invisible ward had sprang up around Potter that allowed Lucius to push him about, but not to do anything else to him. And the many injuries that had marked his body were gone, though he was noticeably pallid. “Yeah. And it’s a few days later and we’re in some bolthole of yours. You didn’t try to kill me.”

“Would it have worked?” Lucius asked. His voice cracked and he awkwardly busied himself with doing up the last few buttons of his shirt. He was uncomfortably aware of how Harry’s eyes were slowly taking him in.

“No, but it’s interesting. I think we need to discuss that.” On that note, Harry stepped completely inside. He pulled the door shut behind him.


	10. Grains of Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth will out, but sometimes only after enough bloodshed.

“I entered a room  
And found a dead man,  
Spoke with him  
And came away with his secrets.”  
\--Traditional Latin American riddle (Book)

* * *

Behind the gauzy gray curtain, Voldemort’s figure whipped restlessly across the room. His robes smoothed out his shadow so he looked as he had always had, but his stride was distinctly shortened, and a jagged rasp occasionally intruded into his voice when he was not careful. After his feet slithered Nagini, her head held high off the floor as she trailed him like an anxious hound.

“How is the Black creature?” Voldemort finally hissed.

Severus rested his forehead against the floor and filled his mind with the cold of its stones. He pressed his palms flat so they would take on the chill quicker, and cease trembling. It had been three days since he’d collapsed in his house, and in those three days the Dark Lord had withdrawn into silence so profound that even people like Pettigew had begun to wonder on it, broken only by a peremptory sending for Ginevra Weasley to attend him. And shortly after that, Voldemort had burst out of wherever he’d taken himself to, and called his followers to him with such force that Severus’ head was still reeling.

“His physical strength is improving.” The curtain was only a few inches from Severus’ fingertips, and though it hung so that several inches of its bottom portion were heaped up on the stones, the fabric sometimes billowed and rose slightly due to a some breeze behind it. The air in Severus’ half of the room was still and stale. “By the end of the week I believe he’ll be fit for you to examine without there being any danger that we might lose him beyond the Veil again,” Severus judiciously added.

After the incident on the sofa, he and Black had come to some sort of temporary truce insofar as they could communicate tersely without being violently waylaid by the rise of old grudges—at least, not as often as before. Black was in fact recovering much faster than Severus was telling Voldemort, and felt that he could stand up to an interview with the Dark Lord, but his inability to keep past and present separate in his mind still lingered. It appeared to be more and more sporadic, but nevertheless Severus preferred to delay the meeting. Too much rode on Black’s ability to convince Voldemort that he had no mind of his own left.

If it had been dependent on Black’s ability to merely appear witless, things would have been much easier, Severus savagely thought. He immediately suppressed it, but not soon enough for Voldemort to have missed a vague impression of it. “Severus…twice now, Potter has managed to penetrate my innermost sanctums and suborn people whom I thought harmless or loyal…people about whom I had no worries whatsoever. Consequently I am disinclined to make leaps of faith.”

“My lord, you know I have _always_ been loyal to you,” Severus breathed. He didn’t need to force himself to inject pure fear into his voice.

He didn’t dare raise his head either, but he knew that Voldemort’s shadowy figure was looming directly in front of them. Then Voldemort abruptly turned and walked towards the opposite end of the room. His stride was slower and noticeably uneven, and when the wind behind the drapes blew, Severus smelled something sickly-sweet, like blossoms crushed in blood. And it was nearly that: unicorn’s blood.

“I know you haven’t, but in this case it works to your advantage, Severus,” Voldemort replied in an almost kindly tone. He drew to a stop. Then there came the sound of Nagini’s hissing and the click of nails across her scales as Voldemort caressed her. “I already know under what circumstances you’ll betray me.”

The Mark flared up so quickly and brutally that Severus saw a false image of it imprinted on his vision, which had flooded with red. He arched up with the pain, then snapped over and fell onto his side. His teeth were chattering and his limbs shook uncontrollably for what seemed like hours, though when the pain abruptly stopped, he knew it had not even been a minute.

“So. You still answer to me…” Voldemort’s thoughtful tone faded away in a rustling of cloth, accompanied by the occasional click of his robe’s heavy embroidery over the stones. “Narcissa has decided to revert to her maiden name, as both her husband and son are clearly renegade. The Malfoy family from herein out shall be considered apostate, and treated accordingly. I will see Sirius Black in three days—no more and no less—in the Time Room.”

“My lord,” Severus choked out.

The sounds of shifting robes and Nagini’s scales scraping over the floor gradually faded away. Then Severus heard a door closing at the very far end of the room behind the curtains, and decided that constituted enough of a dismissal. He dragged himself to his feet, feeling as if every bone in his body had been filled with slow-eating acid, and got himself back to his estate as soon as possible.

Ginevra had succeeded, Severus assumed, but he’d not dared to attempt a check on Grimmauld Place or her whereabouts since then. During Voldemort’s three-day absence, the Death-Eaters had been thrown into disarray by a series of horrendous discoveries: the slaughter of Macnair and his household, the inexplicable destruction of Malfoy Manor that had just preceded Voldemort’s abrupt silence—the rumors over that had nearly paralyzed the lower ranks with fear and confusion. They’d needed a leader, orders, anything to tell them what to do if not what was going on, and in Voldemort’s absence Severus and Rookwood had had to handle that in order to prevent anarchy. There’d been no time for anything else, let alone trying to slip into Grimmauld Place.

A thousand other questions nagged at Severus and nibbled on the raw ends of his nerves as well. He didn’t know what had happened to Lucius or where the man was—if he was even still living. A difficult conversation with a distraught Narcissa had convinced him that the Death-Eaters were somehow being prevented from finding Draco, which should have been relatively easy due to the Mark they all shared. And Potter hadn’t bothered Severus in a week now.

“Home, are you? So Voldemort still doesn’t think you’re a threat to him? Merlin, but I am impressed with the arrogance of the bastard,” Sirius said from behind Severus. He was leaning against the doorframe, one skeletal arm slung about himself. When Severus turned and began to walk towards him, Black’s eyes only unfocused once, and the man apparently got hold of himself before he blurted out any incomprehensible babble about long-ago events. “What’s the score?”

“Voldemort has lost a Horcrux—you do remember what those are, I hope? I’m tiring of explaining that over and over to you.” Severus continued walking past Black and through the doorway, intending to retire to his laboratory. He still had the other two Horcruxes to track down and increasingly little time in which to do that.

Black turned about on his heel and reached out to grab Severus’ elbow. “I know. He’s thinking about them all the time now. Whining. He almost died, didn’t he? I mean, again—no, I—”

“What do you mean, he’s thinking? What are you hearing?” Severus snapped, stopping to look back at the other man. He saw the fit start to come over Black and with a sigh, walked back to give Sirius a rough shake. 

But as soon as he put both his hands on Black’s shoulders, the growing confusion in Black’s eyes completely disappeared. Instead they were piercing and far too aware; some dulling ignorance was necessary for the day-to-day compromising that made human existence possible, but that’d been stripped away from Black in a ghastly fashion. “He helped bring me back, didn’t he? There’s—” Black’s mouth twisted “—something left of that between him and me. Sometimes…sometimes I think I could almost reach out and…pull on it…”

“It wouldn’t stop him for long, even if he decided to take it as an invitation to shed his body for yours.” That had been a possible motive of Voldemort’s that Severus hadn’t even considered till now, and the words chilled him even as they passed out of his mouth to flavor the air with sarcasm. It was…not too probable, since Black’s body was in far from ideal state, but nevertheless it was something to keep in mind.

“Yeah, but you should only need a couple minutes, shouldn’t you? He can’t be wearing that many layers of robes,” Sirius said.

For a moment, Severus merely stared at him. Then he shoved Sirius back against the wall. Hard, so the idiot’s elbows rattled. “Black, I am _not_ stripping down Voldemort under any circumstances unless I first know that he is in fact carrying a Horcrux on him and exactly where to find it.”

The other man’s head cracked hard against the edge of the door-frame. It stayed tipped back, then slowly came down as Black laughed in a grating, malicious note. “Touchy, Snape. I remind you of a bad experience with Voldemort?”

A wash of dark virulent red splashed over Severus’ vision, and he barely willed himself not to strangle Black. He concentrated on thinking on other things…strategies for obtaining the other two Horcruxes’ locations. In that Black’s suggestion did lead to some fruit—if Black was to be taken to the Time Room at the old Department of Mysteries, then that sort of distraction would make it easy for Severus to slip into the Hall of Prophecies nearby and see if that location contained one.

“You’re starting to think I’m not such an idiot after all.” Black raised an eyebrow at whatever look Severus was giving him, and lifted his hands to pry his shoulders out of Severus’ grip. “I don’t have any damn link to your mind, but I know you pretty well. Even if I can’t always get it in the right order…”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Severus asked, watching Black push himself off the wall and come to stand beside him. The other man had kept hold of Severus’ forearm, fingers nervously squeezing it, and was leaning far too close.

Sirius laughed again, but this time it appeared to be at himself. “You should’ve noticed by now—I don’t lose my mind so much around you, and Merlin, that’s ironic. Whatever you’re doing in your dungeon, I want to help. You’ve got to convince Harry that he can’t kill you because that’ll hurt me, don’t you? Better start doing a better job of that.”

“Fine. Now let go of my arm,” Severus tersely replied after a pause. He would rather have broken Black’s neck. He would rather have provoked Voldemort into killing him so he no longer had to claw and struggle for every next breath of air.

Something of that must have shown on his face, and moreover, must have cut through to touch whatever particles of sympathy Black had left. He looked at Severus and the lines of his face slowly turned sober and thoughtful, which tested Severus’ temper even more sorely. Then he dropped Severus’ arm, but he shuffled a little closer. “It’s cold,” he observed.

“It’s warm now compared to how it’ll be later.” Severus drew his robes about himself and stiffly stalked towards his laboratory with his unwanted, understanding companion.

* * *

Harry braced his hip against the sink, which left Lucius with the choice of either sitting on the edge of the bathtub or on the toilet if he wanted to rest his feet. He chose to stand. His heels hit the tub and the thud echoed around the small room.

“You back up any farther and you’ll be arse-down in there,” Harry said. Without the jacket’s padding, he looked rail-thin and fragile, with elongated wrists that jutted from his cuffs. The skin of his hands was so thin that Lucius could see the blue veins in the back of it, and the skin of his face was waxen like that of a doll’s. “Don’t tell me you’re that scared of me.”

“Doesn’t that seem like a natural reaction for me to develop?” Lucius reached out for the towel-bar and held onto it for support. Three days of surviving on what little he could do with wandless magic and blundering about the Muggle-way had taken its toll on his strength, and he was already feeling a little faint. But he preferred not to position himself lower than Potter—at least not till he understood what arrangement there was to be now.

Shrugging, Harry looked down at the sink. His eyes roamed over the counter before finally settling on the ancient straight razor Lucius had found in the medicine cabinet. He picked it up as Lucius watched in mesmerized terror and ran his fingertip along the flat of the blade, which was still damp. “You didn’t even try to kill me.”

“ _Crucio_ didn’t work on you, so it seemed like a logical presumption that the other Unforgivable Curses would have a similar effect,” Lucius said. He made an effort to drag his eyes away from the razor and focus on Potter’s face, but his gaze always wandered back.

The razor-handle spun between Harry’s fingers, then stopped so he held it between the tips of his index fingers. Red began to bead up around where the blade-tip was pressed into his finger. “You don’t have your wand anyway. But you could’ve done it the Muggle way, or is that still too beneath you?”

“You’re not human, so how could I be sure those would work either?” Lucius grated out. “I thought you’d be happy that I am, in fact, taking my vow seriously. I said I’d be loyal to you.”

“And here I thought it was more like I was talking, and you were so damn scared I was going to hurt your bloody heir that you were finally listening.” Blink. Harry had pushed off the sink and was in front of Lucius with the razor just resting on the hollow between Lucius’ collarbones. He leaned forward so his hair partially obscured Lucius’ view of the blade and his breath blew softly, warmly over Lucius’ face. “I didn’t kill Voldemort—came so damned _close_ , goddamn—so he’s still alive, you know. Didn’t get the piece of soul still in him either, so there’s still work to do. Trying to get some of that for yourself again? Curry favor?”

All of Lucius’ nerves had seized up so badly that he didn’t want to take a breath lest he trigger the sudden release of one and accidentally throw himself onto the blade. But breath was necessary for speech, and he had to speak. “I am trying to stay alive. I want to live, and I want you to leave Draco alone. But whatever I do, you seem to find fault with—”

They were so close that the air of Harry’s laugh lightly slapped Lucius in the face. “That’s so rich, coming from you.” 

He settled back so Lucius could see, and gasp at, the sudden flick of his wrist. One button flew off to bounce from the wall to the floor. Lucius sucked in his breath.

“Where are we?” Harry said.

“I thought you already—” Another button fell beneath the razor, and this time the blade nicked the shirt as well so Lucius felt the slightest graze against his breastbone. He licked dry lips and started again. “The manor house appeared to be a total loss, but I was able to find a broomstick and fly us out. We’re in a small house about twenty miles away. It’s one—it’s where Draco stays—stayed whenever Voldemort or any other high-ranking officials visited the Manor. Since he’s disgraced, I…didn’t want to expose him to them.”

Harry snorted. He lifted his hand and turned it around so he could slide his knuckles from the base of Lucius’ throat to the third button, where he flipped his hand so he could cut off that button as well. His last three fingers slipped into the gaping shirt and lightly feathered over Lucius’ skin, while his index finger and thumb held the razor so its tip skated over Lucius’ shirt. “To keep him safe, I’m guessing. Not that he really sees it that way.”

“What would you know about my family?” Lucius hissed. Then he carefully pressed his lips together as the razor blade suddenly snapped downwards.

It pressed through the shirt fabric across his nipple, not quite deeply enough to cut. “A lot by this point, I’d say,” Harry dryly said. “Now tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now. You were supposed to stay within Voldemort’s organization and distract him while Snape worked, but at this point he’ll just kill you on sight. What use are you to me now?”

Lucius’ disbelief was strong enough to temporarily overcome his frightened fascination with the blade scratching circles around his nipple. He lifted his head and stared at Potter. “What? Did you—you expected me to take Voldemort’s offer and go with him, and leave you there?”

“It seemed like a logical presumption,” Harry sarcastically drawled. He arched an eyebrow at Lucius.

A sharp pain suddenly slashed over Lucius’ third left rib and he flinched away; the backs of his knees hit the edge of the bathtub and he teetered, then fell. His outstretched hand hooked onto the towel-bar and he managed to pull himself forward enough to land on a sitting position on the tub edge, but it was too precarious a perch and he quickly slid down to the floor, banging his shoulders against the bathtub. His feet skidded out to either side of Harry, who swiftly knelt so when Lucius began to pull himself up and forward, there was a razor pricking his throat.

Something was sucking very lightly at the cut along Lucius’ rib, looping and relooping itself so his shirt rustled against him. He didn’t need to look down to know it was one of those damned shadows. “Well, when one has to choose between two evils, one generally wishes to keep within sight the evil that seems more dangerous,” Lucius breathed. He lifted his chin a fraction and leaned away, but Harry pressed forward with the razor an equal amount so it made no difference. And suddenly, Lucius desperately had to laugh. “Damn it, Harry—as if I enjoyed Voldemort’s treatment of me lately any better. He wasn’t ever going to forgive me.”

“Neither am I.” Harry stared into Lucius’ eyes without any obvious expression, but it gradually became clear that Potter was…puzzled. Without looking down, he brushed off the shadow lapping up Lucius’ blood. Then his hand pressed downwards till it cupped Lucius’ prick through his trousers. “What do you call this—going with the winner?”

“At this point, I’d be very amused if anyone tried to use that word.” A little fragment of the harsh, sardonic laugh coiling itself within Lucius dribbled out; the movement of his throat made the razor dig deeper. The fingers on his prick slowly, sensuously splayed and slid down, then back up so he took a hitching breath and the razor pricked again. “Oh, Merlin, Potter. Yes, you can torture me all you want, but you could ask as well,” Lucius said almost good-humoredly. His hysteria over the whole situation had risen to such a high level that he no longer knew anything else, and so he was perversely insulated from shock by being submerged _in_ shock. “I’m exhausted of Voldemort. I simply don’t want him in the world anymore, and you can get rid of him.”

The front of his trousers suddenly loosened, but the stricture of Harry’s fingers swiftly replaced it. They curved behind Lucius’ balls and gouged their nails up into the delicate skin behind them so Lucius couldn’t help arching. His own nails scrabbled against the tile.

“For you?” Harry asked.

Lucius closed his eyes. His prick was rising, which put as much hot blood into his cheeks as was pooling into that treacherous member of his body, and all the nerves in his skin were jumping and twitching with fear, with arousal, with sick anticipation, and somehow the most distinct feeling he had was fatigue. “I’ve come to understand I won’t live long enough to see it. But as long as I know he’s gone from the world as well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? It’ll save me the bother of living through the long and convoluted reconstruction that’ll have to follow.”

After several moments had passed, Lucius began a mental count. He’d reached seven when the razor withdrew from his throat and Harry’s fingers from his trousers. He opened his eyes.

The world spun wildly, then crashed into the floor; Lucius barely threw up one arm in time to keep his chin and nose from smashing on the tiles. His other arm was wrenched behind his back, and when he made the mistake of turning over, Harry yanked up his free arm and swiftly pulled down his shirt to knot it tightly around Lucius’ arms. The popping of the remaining buttons sounded like a brief rain-shower, a false illusion of relief.

Lucius kicked backwards, but only struck the side of the tub. It rang resoundingly through the room, deafening him so that next he knew of Potter was when a weight clamped itself around his waist and something jerked back his head by his hair. A long, thin streak of hot snaked wetly around Lucius’ ear so its tip touched itself. Then Harry’s tongue whipped back into his mouth so quickly that it lashed Lucius’ skin and made him shudder; he bucked upward just as Harry leaned forward so he briefly felt the impression of an erection against his buttocks.

Nails scraped across the front of his thigh and over the top of his trousers, now rumpled halfway down his hips, to take hold of his prick again. “See this hasn’t lost interest yet,” Harry murmured. He undulated against Lucius, his mouth dragging back and forth over Lucius’ nape. “You, ready to die? Tell me another one, Malfoy.”

“I said I knew I was going to—that has nothing to do with being ready for it,” Lucius snapped back. He jerked against the grip on his hair, but only succeeded in getting teeth sinking deep into the side of his throat. He subsided and Harry squeezed his prick till he was whimpering and squirming against the floor, body begging even if his mouth wasn’t. “Between you—and Voldemort—I’m dying. I’ll end up dead and I can’t—do— _anything_ —”

He couldn’t lie still, he couldn’t struggle. In the end he moved with Potter, rolling his hips as Harry skinned off his trousers and rubbed a hand roughly between his knees, turned his head to expose more of his neck as Harry’s mouth worked it raw and throbbing. He never would have wished for this or wanted it, but as it was, this was what he needed. No more illusions of control, no more pretending that the world hadn’t gone terribly, terribly wrong, no more thinking that mere gloss could suffice. Because the world was all askew and it never had been spinning in Lucius’ hands to begin with and he couldn’t take it.

Harry put his hand on the back of Lucius’ neck and shoved him down so hard pain jarred from his cheekbone down through his jaw to his shoulders. He slumped, then went stiff when Harry’s tongue invaded him: it stabbed up and in, it coiled back on itself and flicked over every spot that made Lucius whine and then it expanded the width of its coils so he was forced open and ready. He screamed into the tile before Harry had even lifted his hips, and it seemed as if he didn’t stop till the convulsions of his own body finally made his throat close. And Harry fucked him all through it, rough and snarling, burning Lucius from inside-out with his abnormal heat, and longer till Lucius was weakly trying to move away and then till Lucius was simply limp and unresisting.

Potter was surprisingly undemonstrative, considering all his fury. His fingers gouged a fraction deeper into Lucius’ hips and he slammed into Lucius one last time, so hard that Lucius felt the outline of Harry’s balls against his buttocks, and held the position rigidly for the space of one long shard of breath. Then he withdrew enough to drop onto elbows and knees. He rested a moment before pulling out entirely.

Lucius laid on the cold tile and felt sweat and come and a little bit of blood slowly start to dry on him. He listened to the footsteps as Harry walked over to the sink and turned on the water, splashing it about a bit. Then Potter dressed himself, opened the door and walked out. A few seconds later, he returned to kneel besides Lucius. Something hard and cold and sharp hooked beneath Lucius’ chin and forced him to look up: Harry with his cane again. “Harry, I’d almost…say you were envious…given how you…enjoy using that.”

Harry tucked the cane beneath one arm and substituted his hand for holding up Lucius’ chin. He sat down crosslegged. “Don’t call me that. Do you know where Snape lives now?”

He pulled upward so Lucius either had to let his head be wrenched off his neck, or had to sit up. Pain permeated Lucius’ whole body and mingled with extreme exhaustion, but in spite of that…he did want to live. Damn Potter—he struggled upwards long enough to maneuver himself over Harry’s legs, then collapsed awkwardly. His head ended up on Harry’s shoulder, and Harry draped his arm around Lucius’ waist so they made an odd parody of a lover’s embrace. “What happens after you kill Voldemort?” Lucius asked. “Do you get your second chance at life? Your happily-ever-after?”

“Do I _win_ , you mean?” The bite in Harry’s voice was unexpectedly ferocious, but before Lucius could analyze it very deeply, Harry had sunk fingers into his hair again and used it to wrench Lucius about for a kiss.

It was that in name only; in intention, it was a mouth-claim that did not touch on the softer emotions at all. His lips had Lucius’ mouth shocked open in a second, and the advantage he took of it was best characterized as rape.

But the desire for life was too strong for its own good. Lucius hated it, understood it and in the next second, found himself yielding to it without reservations. When Harry pulled away, Lucius tried to follow with a whimper even as his stomach snarled itself in bitter disgust. “I know where Severus lives,” he whispered.

“Good. We need to get back to London first and see if Voldemort’s on his feet again, but after that we’ll visit Snape.” Harry pushed Lucius against the wall, then prodded him onto his side with the cane. Something slashed through the shirt wrapped around Lucius’ wrists before Harry withdrew.

“And your godfather,” Lucius added. He was a little too slow in turning back over, so all he saw of Harry’s reaction to that was a fast-disappearing flash of…rage? Rage mixed with wistfulness and frustration. “Harry—”

That earned him a sharp kick in the thigh. “ _Don’t_ call me that,” Harry snapped. He went out again, then came back with a fresh set of clothes for Lucius.

The most help he offered after that was to dampen a hand-towel in the sink and offer it to Lucius, for which Lucius was actually rather grateful. Perhaps having a full understanding of his circumstances, drawn in unmistakable terms, would be the key to ultimately finding a way out of it, but the method by which he’d gotten that realization had left him too raw for much contact with others.

“Draco is alive, by the way,” Harry abruptly said. He was leaning in the doorway again, but facing the mirror. He did have a reflection, but the mirror showed a man with strangely dull eyes, as if all the emotion had been charred out of him. “I haven’t really done anything to him.”

Lucius paused with the fresh shirt in his hands. He watched the fabric shake, then quickly unfolded the garment and began to put it on. “Why not?”

Harry’s mouth grimaced into a humorless smile. “Because I used to feel sorry for him sometimes, and I might feel something when he dies.”

The obvious implication of course was that Harry wouldn’t feel a thing over Lucius’ death. But there was something else, something Lucius doubted Harry had meant to reveal. Thinking on it, Lucius did up his last shirt-button. He looked at himself in the mirror: haggard, bruised and cut, with a near-mad glint of desperation in his eye. Then he turned around and leaned forward to brush his lips over Harry’s mouth.

Harry didn’t react, so Lucius pressed forward and fully kissed him, soft and pleading like a whore. The next moment, he was bouncing off the opposite side of the doorframe, jaw stinging from Harry’s blow and sorenesses all over his body flaring up. “Don’t touch him, please,” Lucius said, letting himself sink to the floor.

He glanced up at Harry, who was gazing at him through narrowed eyes. Once Harry drew a breath as if to speak, but never did. Instead he abruptly spun on his heel and walked out.

Lucius remained on the floor, staring after him. He slowly lifted his hand and fingered his jaw, where the old cuts were throbbing again. Then he hesitantly drew his thumb down one of them, and slowly drew in his breath. He let out his breath a good deal quicker as he grabbed hold of the doorframe and yanked himself to his feet. He went back into the bathroom and did a better job at tidying himself up.

But Lucius’ mind still was on the ground, looking after Harry, and it was very much in disarray.


	11. Blood Money

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco gets things done and gets things done to him for it. Harry catches up.

“Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib’d  
In one self place; for where we are is Hell,  
And where Hell is, there must we ever be.”  
\--Mephistopheles, _The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus_ by Christopher Marlowe  
* * *

Heavy-bellied storm-clouds hung so low over the sky that it seemed as if they were menacing the earth, ready to drop and crush at any moment. It would’ve been more suitable weather for Ginny’s funeral than the insistent sun that had actually occurred on that day, but Draco supposed that was a sign of the Weasley family’s continuing inability to do things properly. It certainly was a sign that whatever Harry had done to Draco’s home and father, Voldemort was still around.

A bit of ash drifted onto the back of the hand he was resting on the sill. He cursed and shook it off, then turned away from the window. Since none of the Weasleys currently could stand the sight of him, he’d been moved along with Granger to the resistance’s excuse for a research center, which was housed in a small, abandoned Muggle office building. The first floor had had many well-padded, fully reclineable chairs with what looked like restraining straps on the arms and upon seeing them, Draco had asked Granger whether they’d been sent to a Mudblood’s idea of a torture chamber. She’d gone red, then white and glassy-eyed, and had coldly informed him that that used to be a dentist’s office. He hadn’t seen her since.

It was her parents’ old workplace, Lupin later told Draco, so that explained that. Well, Draco wasn’t entirely sad about the whole incident; as long as Granger kept herself occupied with the books on the third floor, that left Draco free to poke about the books on the second floor. He was supposed to be helping to research what Harry was, but instead he was spending his time looking up the golden cup Ginny had been clutching when she’d died.

He looked around himself, but as usual, he was the only one on the entire floor. Draco pulled up a chair, sat in it, and then dug the goblet—right now small enough to pass as a watch-charm—out of his pocket. He set it on the sill, then pointed his wand at it. “ _Finite_.”

The goblet instantly resized itself. He’d cleaned it up a bit so the crest on its side could be clearly seen; that detail had made it easy to identify the goblet as being a relic of Helga Hufflepuff. All the books mentioning it assigned to it various magical powers, so though Draco still couldn’t get much of a feel for anything except that the cup was not Muggle-made, he had to assume that it could do something. It certainly could serve in any number of spells, both Dark and Light, but that didn’t really answer the question of why Harry wanted it.

Or why Voldemort, from whom it’d obviously been stolen, had had it in the first place. He should be far too powerful for something like the goblet to matter to him.

Draco tipped back the chair and stabbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk. He let the chair fall back onto all four legs and shook out a new one. The white cardboard of the pack still had bloodstains on it, and if he didn’t light up quickly enough, he sometimes got a whiff of the lily-based perfume Ginny had used. He didn’t this time and had to blow vigorously out through his nose to rid himself of the smell.

It could be symbolic of his victory over Hogwarts…but then, having the school destroyed already served that purpose pretty well. Anyway, that explanation would mean Harry would want it only for embarrassing Voldemort, and Harry seemed to prefer doing that via killing senior Death-Eaters.

“Draco?”

Granger. In the same motion, Draco re-shrank the goblet, swept it into his pocket and turned around. Only moments later, Granger barged into the room with a book that was thicker than she was—though that wasn’t difficult nowadays. She dropped it unceremoniously on top of his desk and flipped through the pages, then flattened them.

“Look,” she said.

He looked. The left-hand page was entirely taken up by a detailed woodcut, which showed the typical Muggle’s idea of a wizard—weird hat, unfashionable robes, wrinkled old man inhabiting them—standing next to a magical circle. Within the circle was a strange-looking figure, which was best likened to a Dementor holding a scythe. The right-hand page was in some sort of abbreviated Latin, so he couldn’t read it right away. “Political cartoon? Starting up your activism again, Granger? I didn’t realize we’d gotten house-elves in here.”

She compressed her lips. Then she expressionlessly slapped him. Before he’d even finished rocking back in his seat, she was hunched over the right-hand page so her hair completely covered it. Her left hand moved over the left-hand page as if it had a will of its own. “This is a ritual for binding Death. It doesn’t work, obviously, because there’s no such thing as Death. And shut up, Malfoy—there is the act of dying, and the state of death, and death-collectors that come when you die, but there’s no single entity that makes up Death. That’s what I mean. But this book is important because it does lay down circumstances in which you can _stall_ the collector of your death.”

Draco was at first inclined to dig through her masses of frizzy hair till he found her neck so he could snap it, but as she talked, he got himself under control and paid attention. He didn’t do so because of what she had to say, but because in the engraving, objects were set at regular intervals around the magic circle and one of those objects happened to be a familiar-looking goblet.

It wasn’t the same, he decided after a closer look, but it was like enough so that the Hufflepuff cup could be substituted in its place.

“…break the contract,” Granger said.

“I’d say it’s been broken for a while, given how Harry’s been going after Voldemort,” Draco drawled. He sucked on his cigarette, letting the smoke trickle out of his nostrils in its own good time so it floated between him and her. It made her eyes a little less frighteningly bright. “Yes, I was listening. But your theory’s no good: it doesn’t explain how Harry ended up a death in the first place, and anyway, it only works if Voldemort made some deal with Harry _after_ my father killed him. And I don’t know, but Potter never struck me as the kind that went for compromises before that happened. After? Well, now.”

Granger sat there and stared through the smoke-clouds with eyes like fresh-lit cinders. Then she abruptly swung at him again. He’d been expecting it this time and ducked, but she didn’t even seem to notice. She used her momentum to get out of her chair and turn around, and by the time he’d righted himself, she’d disappeared up the stairs.

Draco flicked ash into the corner and glanced at the page again. One phrase caught his eye and he leaned forward, frowning. Her theory was bad, but some of what Granger had been saying did fit. Ginny wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble if Potter didn’t really need the goblet, and Voldemort wanted to live forever—that, Draco well knew. So according to this text, the objects used could serve as repellants or as attractants of a death…

He pushed the cigarette between his lips and got up, then slid his arms under the book so it’d stay open. Then he walked up the stairwell and shouldered open the door to the next floor.

It was nothing but bookshelves. Bookshelves, cobbled together out of old planks and scraps of metal and in some places, a makeshift net of shoelaces, yarn, anything. The books were crammed together on them tightly but carelessly so they jutted out unevenly; Draco had no idea how anyone managed to get through the aisles because those essentially didn’t exist. And they weren’t well-cared for: some of the ones nearest him had pages half-out, and those pages had fresh water-spots and even some mold on them. Damp rot was rank in the place.

“Granger?” Draco called. He backed up to stop the door behind him from completely closing with his foot. Then he decided the book was thick enough and heavy enough, and stuck a handkerchief between the pages before he set it down as a door-stop. “Granger?”

At first he didn’t hear anything, but after casting an amplification spell, he detected a faint murmuring at the far end of the room. After two minutes’ waiting saw it come no near, Draco sighed and stubbed out his cigarette on the doorframe. He pitched the butt into the stairwell, pulled out his wand, and began shoving and squeezing his way through the widest aisle.

Some of the books here were magical, but they apparently were too depressed by their ruined circumstances and put up no fight, only grumbling and hissing when he passed them. Still, the sound of their whining was so loud it almost covered the sound of Granger’s voice.

He found her halfway up one of the bookcases, spread-eagled against the tomes like some gigantic spider. Her hands roamed ceaselessly over the spines, pressing on them not as if she cherished them but as if she _possessed_ them, as if she lived on them like a flea did living things. Her cheek stayed jammed up against the same book; her face was towards him so he could see the half-lidded eyes, the lips constantly murmuring low weird nonsense. After everything that had happened, it managed to make Draco feel a little ill. “Granger. Listen. Did you find anything on destroying those—those—”

“ _Memento mori_ ,” Granger finally said. She lifted her head and opened her eyes so she looked a little more in the present. Her right hand skittered fearfully high and plucked a huge volume from the shelves as if it were an empty sac. “And I always thought the idea came from the Victorians. But never mind. That’s Muggle things. Yes, I did, but why should I tell you? You showed up with _Ginny_.”

“I didn’t kill her—fuck, I offered to get her out of there. Get it through your crazy mind, Granger: some people don’t want to be helped.” On second thought, Draco was better off working on his own. He turned to go.

The book dropped at his feet so it was touching his toes. If he’d gone any further, it would’ve—well, at least given him a terrible headache.

A thump behind him signaled Granger. She looked a little calmer, but in the way a wounded, plotting animal did. “What didn’t you say about Ginny, Draco?”

He looked at her with her mad, grieving, still-thinking eyes in her bony starving face, and for a moment he had to admit this might not be the best idea. Then he remembered nothing about his life now was a good idea, and relaxed. He took out the goblet and restored it to normal size, then held it up so Granger could see. “She was holding this—one of those _memento mori_ things. It’s what she died to get—she told me to destroy it. For Harry.”

Granger’s eyes flicked back and forth between it and Draco. He could see the gears in her brain turning, turning, turning, and coming up with nothing too suspicious. “Why? And why didn’t you mention this before?”

“Well, have you lot given me a chance? I seem to remember spending most of my time before we came here hexing her brothers so they’d leave my neck intact, and the only times you’ve been down since then is to babble about your guesses about Harry,” Draco snapped. “As for why—I don’t know. She died before she told me.” 

He turned around and stepped over the book.

“Wait.” When he turned back, Granger was stooping to retrieve the volume she’d thrown. She flipped it open without look, then tilted it towards him. “It’s here. I’ll have to help.”

“Of course,” Draco muttered. Though he actually was quite pleased.

The goblet might send Harry back to wherever he’d come from, in which case they’d still have Voldemort, but at least Voldemort was a known threat. It might help Harry, in which case they’d at least be down one. Or it might annoy both of them, which served them right. In any case, Draco didn’t care to let either of them have the damned thing, and he didn’t care to keep it himself. If no one was satisfied, then he could rest content with that.

* * *

Sometime in the middle of the night, Severus woke up to the feeling of warmth and comfort. He stiffened and it developed, inevitably, flaws—bony fingers digging into the flesh of his side, knees gouging the backs of his thighs, heavy hot breath on his nape. When he twisted, Sirius merely took advantage of the movement to curl tighter against him.

“It’s getting clearer,” Black muttered. He moved his head so the icy tip of his nose touched Severus’ neck, then crisscrossed it in weaving motions. “I knew it all back there, but since I got here, everything’s—so—fragmented—”

“You were to be confined to your room. Voldemort does keep an eye on this place, though he’s been distracted lately.” Severus unmercifully jammed his arm back till he heard the other man grunt, then jerked himself free. He turned over and in return, got an armful of gaunt, feverish frenzy.

It was dark in the room, the way Severus preferred it, and so Black seemed nothing but scrabbling sharp fingertips that pawed and shredded and ripped at Severus’ clothing, then tried to do the same to the skin they bared, and gnashing, chewing, sucking hot mouth. He inelegantly mauled his way up Severus’ front while Severus was still attempting to get rid of him, then came out with that accursed black-humored laugh of his just before he mashed their mouths together.

Fine. _Fine_. This pathetic, snapping shadow of a foolish bastard who should’ve been drowned at birth had been taunting Severus for days, pretending he knew what Severus wanted to do with him. And he was correct in that Severus wanted Black to depend on him, so Potter couldn’t kill him without hurting his godfather, but oh, was he ever wrong about everything else.

Severus threw him over onto his back. Black was wearing a long-sleeved shirt that, due to his emaciated state, hung well below his waist; his prick and balls bobbed in and out of view as the shirt-tails shifted. He was snarling even as his knees were clamping around Severus, and his teeth sank into Severus’ lower lip to the blood as Severus’ hands forced apart his thighs.

“Why—why _you_ \--” Sirius was half-railing at, half-pleading with Severus. He arched as Severus’ fingers stroked his prick, squeezed his balls, and the light from the single candle in the room glazed his face so that some of his former handsomeness came out. Then he twisted his head, hands splayed beneath the edges of Severus’ collar and digging into the skin, and the illusion twisted till it broke. “Why do I remember around _you_?”

“Because you hate me, you fool, and that lasts longest.” It was like trying to take apart molten shards of glass: Severus ran his hands up under Black’s shirt to sliver his palms on the protruding ribs, on the muscles strung tight as cutting wire, and he tasted blood even as the man beneath him melted.

Not into something soft and yielding, no, but into something that branded him from jawbone to ear with scraping teeth, that scalded him with a mockery of a laugh. “Right, right,” Sirius gasped, dragging at Severus’ back. He somehow found Severus’ nipple through all the fabric whipped up between them and bit down on it till Severus rammed two fingers into his arse. “I remember. I remember I wanted to _break_ your fucking neck, and suck out the marrow from the bones. Remember—remember—”

He ceased babbling when Severus removed the fingers and shoved in his prick instead. Brittle as Sirius seemed elsewhere, there he didn’t yield—his flesh didn’t rip and tear, but instead stretched and clutched so that they rasped against each other, flaying off skin and ripping at nerves and muscle. It only worsened Severus’ already-snapped temper, for the son of the bitch couldn’t even give him this satisfaction, _this_ pain, and he went at Black more savagely.

And Black rose to meet it like an unholy thing, sucking and clutching and clinging till Severus almost thought he was the one being consumed. He fought back every way he knew how, but the grip had him and took him to the edge, then—so close—over—

\--not quite. He fell forward onto his elbows, feeling as if he’d just pulled the tides of the ocean back before their time. For a while, only their ragged breathing was audible.

“I want to climb inside your skin,” Black suddenly said. He hardened the lover’s comment with a jeering snort. “Rip it off your back and see what it’s like being Severus Snape, the man that’s always got the plot.”

Severus blinked. He was glad of the dark then. “You are and always were an idiot, Black.”

“A dead one, no less. But then, what do you call the bastard that fucks him?” Sirius moved beneath Severus, in a way that could’ve been an invitation to more or an attempt to get free. Then he twisted onto his side, pulling himself up, and it was clearly over with. He only moved far enough for Severus to attend to the bedsheets.

“You’re a cracked jar with nothing in it, and your thoughts are likewise,” Severus muttered. He began to reach for his wand, then tiredly flopped back onto the mattress. If Black had gotten out once, with all the wards and warning spells Severus had put on his room, then sending him back when he didn’t want to go was a futile fight. If he still wanted to fight, then Severus would simply hit him with the nearest heavy object; most magics might not work on him, but physical action still did.

Black laughed again, but this time it had life to it. Sobbing, fearful life, which was gone as quickly as it came. By the time his cold nose prodded into Severus’ shoulder, he was snickering with his old malice. “You have no idea, Snape. No idea.”

“Go away or shut up.” Severus closed his eyes. If he ever managed a full night’s sleep again, it would be a miracle, but he needed to at least get some rest. The past few weeks had taken too much of a toll on him, and he still had too far to go to let a moment’s inattention undo him.

“Push me.” When he didn’t get an immediate response, Black perversely took it as a sign to move closer. His arm dropped itself over Severus’ chest like a dead thing, landing at wrong angles, and his breath was too warm on Severus’ skin even though his skin was icy. “It must be a relief, isn’t it? Hating me isn’t all that complicated compared to Voldemort, or Albus—”

Not having had another visit from Potter was not the reprieve Severus had taken it for at first; he’d only exchanged one demon for another. “You know _nothing_ about my relationship with Albus.”

Silence. The thin ray of light briefly showed a disembodied face above Severus. It had high cheekbones, black pits of eyes and a thin pair of lips that were slightly parted to disclose strangely luminous white teeth—in whole, it resembled an ancient funeral mask.

Then Black laid back down. He hissed in his breath between his teeth, then relaxed against Severus. “You’re going to miss it,” he sleepily said.

Thankfully, he said no more after that. He seemed to sleep quite deeply, as if he’d stolen that from Severus, who laid awake all night.

And then, barely an hour before morning, Sirius bolted upright with a scream. Then he folded over, and didn’t look up till Severus had shook him till his teeth had rattled. When he finally did, his eyes were looking at something that possibly was not even in their dimension.

“One down,” he said, and smiled in a way that made Severus suppress a shudder. Then he slowly turned his gaze on Severus, and it grew clouded with confusion. “Fuck. Who’s got the Snitch? Is it James? Please, Merlin, let it be James.”

* * *

Harry’s idea of checking up on Voldemort’s whereabouts, as it turned out, was to take Lucius to the Catacombs, watch the traffic going in and out and then snatch whichever Death Eater he pleased. Lucius was surprised that Voldemort was still using the place, considering that it’d been proven Harry could go in and out of it without any trouble, but when he brought up the subject, Harry merely shrugged.

“I got within a hair of pulling a piece of that son of a bitch’s soul out of him. He should still be feeling like shit now, and he probably still thinks like we’re linked. But I’m not even close to being alive, so I heal faster,” Harry said, checking over the shuttered window.

He seemed calmer now—almost icily rational. The way he’d cut out Pettigew from the packs in which Death-Eaters were traveling now and lured him beyond any help had been enough to impress the part of Lucius that wasn’t petrified with fear. Now they were in a nondescript house somewhere in the less…wealthy part of Muggle London, and Pettigew was tied to a table and just coming round. The whole situation was quite familiar, and Lucius desperately wished there was a chair in the room, or some decent ventilation.

Something hard and long abruptly knocked up the underside of his chin so he had to look up. Lucius did his best to meet Harry’s eyes. “You might as well keep the cane, at this point. Since you have such an affinity for it.”

Harry swung it out from beneath Lucius’ chin and used the snake-head to stroke the side of Lucius’ jaw. The head’s fangs lightly scratched Lucius’ skin: not hard enough to break, but hard enough to serve as a reminder. “It’s not me that’s got the affinity—it’s you. I don’t bother much with it with anyone else, do I?” he breathed, leaning in.

Then he abruptly stepped back, cane going down, and Lucius became shamefacedly aware that he’d been tipping towards Harry with parting lips. He pressed himself back against the wall.

“Would it make you feel better if I kept you tied up?” The look Harry shot Lucius was a parody of coyness—Lucius suddenly thought of the Weasley girl, and wondered what had happened to her since their last appointment, wondered if she’d call _him_ the whore if they should ever meet again. “So you’d be sure you couldn’t do anything to stop me?”

“Get on with it,” Lucius muttered, looking away. He leaned against the wall to take some of the strain off his bruised and aching body. “Don’t pretend any of this is for my benefit.”

Oddly enough, Harry made no reply to that. After several minutes, Lucius’ curiosity got the better of him and he looked back at the table.

Pettigew was fully awake now, but frozen stiff and silent as he stared up at Harry, who was straddling him. Harry had left the cane leaning against the wall, and now was methodically unbuttoning his shirt-cuffs and rolling them up. “Hello, Pettigew,” Harry said. “You haven’t gasped and gone on about how I’m supposed to be dead, so I’m guessing the news has gotten round. How’s your master?”

“…what?” Pettigew eventually croaked.

“How. Is. He.” 

_Crack_. Both Pettigew and Lucius had flinched before they realized that Harry had merely cracked his knuckles. A little bit of red bled into Harry’s eyes.

Suddenly Pettigew was talking like mad, throwing out anything and everything. It had always puzzled Lucius that Voldemort favored him so, considering that the man was a hopeless coward. That sort had their uses, but Voldemort entrusted Pettigew with tasks he’d give to no other wizard…because Pettigew was too stupid to use it to his own advantage and too scared to mess it up, possibly. But that meant he also gave up secrets at the drop of a knife.

Voldemort had indeed been seriously injured. He’d dragged himself to Pettigew’s door—here Pettigew actually preened a bit until Harry snarled at him to get on with it—and then spent three days in seclusion. Pettigew had had to get him unicorn’s blood. Pettigew had—

“—the girl, he’d asked for her before and he asked again so I took her to him, but the little bitch—” Pettigew blindly babbled.

He hadn’t noticed how Harry’s face had gone perfectly blank, nor how his eyes were completely red. He did notice when Harry suddenly plunged his fingers, splayed and curled into claws, into his chest. Lucius turned away at the first splash of red so he only heard the sick crunching of Pettigew’s ribs and breastbone yielding. Pettigew screamed.

“You mean Ginny?” Harry asked in a dangerously steady voice.

“I’m just telling you!” Pettigew squealed. He was beginning to develop a gurgle in his voice. “I’m telling you—I had to do it! I had to! Why—don’t get mad at me, be angry at Malfoy there! He fucked her and nobody ordered _him_ to do it!”

Another scream accompanied Lucius’ swift turnabout. The sheer vitriol in Harry’s eyes left Lucius instinctively flinging himself back against the wall without attempting to explain himself.

Harry jerkily began to rise, then looked down as one of his fingers slid free with a wet pop. He shook his head and snarled to himself before shoving the finger back in; Pettigew twisted and whimpered. “What happened to her?” he tonelessly queried.

“Dead…she stole something from Voldemort and ran, but she couldn’t have lived from what _he_ did to her…didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, I wasn’t even there, I only showed up afterward when he asked me to check on the locket…” Pettigew whined. Thick trickles of blood were beginning to stain his chest.

Now he had Harry’s full attention. “Locket? What locket? Where?”

“His! I don’t know, I just look after it sometimes.” Something ripped and Pettigew’s head abruptly twisted to the side. His eyes rolled till the whites showed. “Hogwarts! It’s at Hogwarts! In the old Slytherin dungeons—I can take you—please, I could—”

“No, thank you, I can see it clear enough in your mind.” Harry paused and cocked his head. Then his lips drew back in a vicious wolf’s grin and he suddenly snapped his fingers together, as if forming a fist in Pettigew’s chest.

Pettigew arched, a soundless scream making a circle of his mouth. The blood poured from his chest, then slowed to a sluggish flow as the light faded from his eyes, which remained fixed on Lucius till the very end. Lucius couldn’t help staring back, even when the sounds of wet slaps and rustling cloth signaled that Harry was getting off the table.

So that had been why Voldemort had been worried enough to send Lucius to Hogwarts’ ruins; Pettigew could keep watch, but certainly couldn’t be an effective defender. Any unusual happenings around there would threaten that Horcrux…and of course Voldemort wouldn’t say anything specific to Lucius about why he was being sent. Oh, Merlin. If Lucius wasn’t absolutely, completely positive that Harry was going to kill him right now over Ginny Weasley, he would have laughed.

A hard grip seized his jaw; Harry’s hand was still hot and sticky with blood, which it smeared all over Lucius’ face. Then, as after Greyback’s death, Harry savaged his mouth.

Lucius instantly yielded, but Harry continued forcing him as if he hadn’t. First Lucius’ knees went, and then he was hanging by Harry’s hold, and then his hands stupidly reached for Harry. The right one was smacked back to the wall with the cane and he hastily returned the left. He tried to breathe, but couldn’t, and he was on the point of passing out when Harry finally ripped away.

“Was that for Draco’s sake, too?” Harry harshly said, and Lucius slowly remembered that he’d just said ‘please’ to him without thinking.

He didn’t dare say or do anything except look at Harry, who still had his jaw in a punishing grip. It tightened to the point of white-hot pain, and then Harry…slowly ran his thumb across Lucius’ lower lip. Lucius trembled and moaned.

Then Harry let go and turned away while Lucius collapsed down the wall to the floor. “Well, you’re worse off enough now, and she’s better off, to take care of that. Get up. We’re—”

* * *

“This is it,” Granger said.

Draco hoped she didn’t expect him to come up with some little speech about how brave they were, or how much this was going to mean to the world, because he didn’t give a damn. He put out his cig, pointed his wand at the goblet sitting in the middle of the circle they’d drawn, and cleared his throat so he wouldn’t butcher the Latin. “Count of three, _on_ three.”

Since he was looking at the goblet and not her, he didn’t have to see her reaction. After a moment, she started counting, and that was all that concerned him.

“Three!” She raised her wand, and he raised hers, and they started chanting.

It was a surprisingly short incantation, given all the preparation necessary—that had taken the whole night. When they were finished and nothing remarkable had happened, Draco…gave it a moment. It wasn’t his first time doing Dark Magic.

After that, he lowered his wand and backed up to get his cigarettes, which were in the pocket of his coat, which in turn was hanging on the chair that they’d shoved to the edge of the room. “Damn it, Granger, did you—”

“Don’t you—” she started, face finally developing some color from her rage.

And that, as it turned out, was the last he ever saw of her. The goblet suddenly exploded in light and heat and _pain_ \--pain that shot out a tentacle of white that seized Draco’s wand and crawled up it to stab into his hand before he could drop his wand. He stumbled back, blinded by light and hurt, and hit the wall. Twisted and fell to the floor and screamed till he had nothing left with which to scream.

* * *

“—to Hogwarts,” Harry absently finished. But instead of starting right off, he stared into space for several seconds. When he finally moved, it was to smile blackly, humorlessly and shake his head. “Well. Draco.”

“What—what about—” Lucius began to pull himself to his feet.

Before he’d gotten halfway, Harry had flung himself across the room and thrown open one of the shutters with such abruptness that Lucius was startled into falling back to the floor. Harry looked out the window, taken by a strange stillness. Then he laughed, and slowly withdrew. “Still stormy out. You know, I’m glad I threw your son out—he’s an idiot. An…idiot.”

He turned back and without any further explanation, jerked Lucius to his feet.

* * *

Voldemort stopped and looked at Nagini. “Draco,” he thoughtfully said.


	12. Poisoned Fountainhead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Horcrux number two, and any number of wild cards.

“ _Rerum concordia discors._ ”  
\--Horace [The concord of things through discord]

* * *

The first thing Draco noticed when he swam back to agonized consciousness was the smell. It was charred and horrible, and it was coming from quite near him. Then he saw his hand, and he wished he could pass out entirely a second time instead of merely feeling nauseated and dizzy. He absently glanced across the room and the human-size lump of charcoal resting there wasn’t terribly surprising, though it was frustrating and actually quite sickening.

He laid his head back down, and in the middle of wondering how the hell he was going to explain this, he did lose consciousness again. Someone had decided to drop a parcel of luck in his lap.

It wasn’t a very big one, since the next time he woke, he was in a bed with Remus Lupin sitting by the side of it, staring at him as if the next full moon couldn’t come too soon. Draco sighed and began to reach for his cigarettes. Then he stopped. He couldn’t lift his hand.

“You were lucky to keep it,” Lupin said. “The healers want it strapped down for another day.”

“Do they. I didn’t realize you still had healers, and not just whoever happens to be just wounded and not insane.” Much to Draco’s relief, his left hand was free and relatively whole, though it was covered in scabbed-over cuts and bruises. He struggled into a sitting position and looked about for his things.

Lupin silently produced a pack of cigarettes—not Draco’s. He shook two out, stuck one between his lips and handed the other to Draco. He lit his from his wand, but didn’t offer a light so Draco had to lean over and light his off the bedside candle.

“Hermione’s dead,” Lupin murmured, staring away from Draco so his expression was indecipherable. The cigarettes he had were coarse and cheap, tasting of salt and tar, and the smoke they gave off was thick and oily.

Draco didn’t reply to that, since it explained itself. He stuck his cig in the corner of his mouth and undid the strap holding his heavily-bandaged right hand to the bed. Then he started picking at the bandages. “Where’s my wand? And my clothes? Come to think of it, whose bloody clothes are these?”

“They’re what we had on hand. I’m sorry, Draco, but we don’t have the space to keep things sorted after people die.” The edge to Lupin’s voice was better at conveying his rage than his sudden smoking was, since he’d clearly only started recently. He coughed after two drags, then set his cigarette in an ashtray on the side-table. “What were you two doing? You were lucky the whole building didn’t come down on top of you, given the size of that magical blast.”

“You don’t say,” Draco muttered. The last wrap of bandage had fallen away from his hand and now he could see it.

It didn’t hurt as much as it looked like it would—actually, he couldn’t feel it at all, aside from the nebulous sense that he had something attached to his wrist. The skin was much darker, as if it’d been run under a broiler, and it looked glassy and hard, though when he concentrated, the slowness of his fingers’ response seemed to be due more to paralysis than to any stiffening of their skin and flesh. His hand had otherwise looked perfectly fine when it was lying flat, but when he curled his fingers, jagged bone fragments and weird twisted tendons bulged up grotesquely beneath the skin. So did something else.

“The core of your wand, I think.” Lupin nodded at the long, irregular ridge that snaked needle-fine around and around Draco’s hand. He pulled out a small silver flask from his pocket, uncapped it, and took a long pull from it. “They can’t get it out. The bandages are warded so that you won’t accidentally do anything. It’s…possible that your hand might be able to function as a wand now. They don’t know, but they can detect magic in it.”

“Of course, you’ve just watched me rip off those.” The flask didn’t have whiskey or any kind of alcohol, Draco decided. He would’ve been able to smell that. Pity. “Wanted a good excuse for beating the shit out of me?”

That, apparently, required another long drink from the flask. Then Lupin put that away and folded his hands in his lap. He leaned forward, and his eyes were a little golden—Draco suddenly remembered Granger mentioning something about Lupin not needing to wait for the full moon anymore. “Draco. What. Happened.”

Draco sat and smoked and stared at his hand. He willed it to flex and unflex, and he watched how his mangled bones and muscles moved as it did. He could feel sweat start to bead up from the effort it took. “Ginny brought something back with her—this little gold cup. She said to destroy it, for Harry.”

He dared a quick glance at Lupin and saw that the two magic words, as they had with Granger, had gotten to the other man. Lupin’s knuckles were white with strain as he unknowingly twisted his hands around each other. Actually, his looked rather bad as well: they bore so many cuts of so many varying ages that they looked like one continuous scab.

“Been running through broken glass at night? It’d go along with Granger’s little book…” Draco saw Lupin’s expression begin to change and got back on topic “…She—Granger—had this theory about what Harry was. That he’s a bound death collector, and the goblet was one of the objects binding him. So we tried to break it.”

It certainly hadn’t been a _memento mori_ after all, Draco thought. If it’d been that, it should have broken without any problem and the power in it should have merely trickled away, but what actually had happened had unleashed a fury like he’d never seen. Well. If he excluded Harry’s temper, at any rate.

“I suppose the spell did what it was supposed to, but Granger’s guess was wrong. That thing wasn’t that, and so the wards we set up didn’t hold.” Draco shrugged and ducked his head to suck on his cigarette. Truly awful tobacco, but even as he fought not to gag, he was thanking it for the nicotine and smoke and whatever other poisons had found their way into it. He wasn’t used to operating without something in his system. “That’s it.”

“Is it?” Lupin harshly, loudly demanded. He began to get up as if he were going to come at Draco, but then he sat heavily back down. The flask made a reappearance, and when he noticed Draco looking, he tipped it forwards so Draco could smell the bitter herbs. “One of Hermione’s last gifts to me: she figured out how to modify my curse so it could be of some use. I can change whenever I want, but my control is…a bit rough. This potion keeps accidents from happening.”

What desperate times…and then Draco couldn’t remember the rest of the quote. It didn’t matter, anyway. It shouldn’t be all that shocking—after all, he’d just come from the side that had been doing without such niceties as morality for centuries. “Well, I hope you’re not waiting for an apology from me, especially in that case. We did what we thought needed to be done, and we both knew the score.”

“Did she? She was—” Lupin’s face twisted, sudden and horrific. He threw himself back against his chair as if he’d been shocked and scrambled to get out the flask, but it clattered uselessly between his rigid fingers. His mouth and nose were already elongating, and on his next jerk he slid forward towards the bed.

Draco pushed himself back, but his hand hadn’t been the only injured part of his body. He’d be too slow that way—he yanked up his crippled hand and—

\--the flask cap shot to the side to ricochet off the wall, while the flask itself rammed into Lupin’s mouth so hard Draco thought he heard teeth chip. Trickles of potion gurgled out from between Lupin’s spasming lips. He slammed back into his chair, and slowly his face began to return to normal. Eventually it looked like he might be in possession of his senses again.

“ _Finite_ … _Finite Incantatum_ ,” Draco hesitantly said.

The flask dropped from Lupin’s mouth so he barely caught it in time. He remained thrown back in the chair, head tipped so he could stare at the ceiling. His breathing was labored and raspy. “Why _you_ , of all people,” he finally said. “Ginny, Hermione…Kingsley, Albus, Minerva, Hagrid, Nymphadora…and you keep living.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re blaming me for the unfairness of life,” Draco spat. He looked around the room again, but before he’d even gotten halfway about, his coat came zooming from a corner and smacked him in the face. He’d been thinking about whether _Accio_ might work, but…he awkwardly began wrapping up his hand again. At least he wasn’t totally defenseless, but he had no intention of dying stupidly after coming this far. “Tonks? I thought you had her tailing Dolohov in Serbia.”

Lupin slowly lifted his head. He looked at Draco only briefly before he got out of his seat and walked over to the wall to retrieve the flask-cap. “I called her back,” he said in a voice full of self-loathing and grief. “The estate Severus received from Voldemort used to be in the Black family. She’s sneaked onto it a few times in the past with Sirius, and when you told us about him…she was on her way back. Bellatrix Lestrange caught her. We haven’t heard anything of her since. She hadn’t had time to send a full report either.”

“If my dear auntie’s got her, then she’s dead.” Draco lit himself a proper cig and inhaled deeply. He heard Lupin suck in his breath, but a moment later, the other man merely spun on his heel and stalked out of the room.

As soon as Lupin had left, Draco went about getting himself out of bed and into his clothes. Accomplishing that took longer than he’d thought, but he resisted the idea of simply collapsing back in bed. He only had to look at his hand for a reason why he couldn’t stay: now he was marked out by more than one side, and safety lay only in staying ahead of them. By blind luck if necessary.

He looked at his other hand and the ring it still bore, which he found a little surprising. But then, Lupin was apparently senior leader now, and he didn’t seem to be all that together at the moment. At any rate, it was worth a try.

* * *

Since the last time Lucius had been in the lower levels of Hogwarts, the conditions hadn’t improved. It was late in the afternoon, but that made no difference in the dungeons. The damp chill seeped through Lucius’ shirt and trousers in the time it took he to walk down the stairs into the place, and clung to him afterward like a curse. He wrapped his arms around himself and stumbled after Harry, who didn’t provide any light.

Harry didn’t seem to need it, but instead strode steadily and confidently through the dark and broken corridors with no difficulty at all. He clearly knew exactly where he was going, and how to get there.

They finally paused at the edge of a short precipice formed by a hall that jutted out three feet over a deep gouge that had crushed away the rest of it and hadn’t stopped till it was a good three floors down. Lucius had no idea what Harry was doing, but it took more than a minute and they still stayed put.

“What…what were you saying about Draco?” Lucius finally asked.

Cool green light suddenly flared, startling him. His foot hit some fragments of rock and in his tense state, he mistook the sound of them clattering over the ground for them falling off the ledge. He instinctively backed up, only to be grabbed and dragged forward just as his foot slid off the true edge of the hall.

The glowing green eyes of his cane’s snake-head burned into his eyes. Then it dropped, and Harry’s pale face loomed above it. His eyes were also glowing, but much more faintly, and his pupils actually appeared to have gone to slits like a cat’s. “You picked a hell of a time to get closer to your son.”

A cold breeze stroked the back of Lucius’ neck and he shivered. The light from the cane-head was low, but somehow extended to the farthest reaches of the pit below them so he could pick out the oddest details: part of a tapestry, a broken picture frame with a jagged piece of wood thrust through the breast of the corpse-eyed, slumped figure it contained, a student’s cauldron. “Would you please just tell me? I don’t need your recriminations,” he snapped.

Too daring…but then Harry merely chuckled beneath his breath, and turned to look out over the pit again. “Fuck, I’m not here to do that anyway. No point in bothering, since they’ve got plenty to do that in the afterlife. We need to get down there.”

“Can’t you just…make us Apparate there as you’ve been doing?” Lucius’ entire body ached and his muscles were continually stiffening up, only to painfully and abruptly loosen without any warning. He was on the point of simply collapsing and taking whatever punishment Harry meted out. At least then, Harry would have to decide whether to keep dragging Lucius along or leave him somewhere.

“I could, but I don’t think you’d like ending up in twenty feet of rubble. Pettigew buried it good. About all he ever seemed to be good at,” Harry said. He looked at Lucius again, and then past him. “Also, I think we’ve got a bit of company. Voldemort’s set guards on the place…well, he’s got more wits than I gave him credit for.”

“Who?” Lucius asked. He turned around, but the corridor behind them was empty and silent.

When he turned back, Harry was gone. The eerie green glow still permeated the whole place, but it no longer came from any specific object or person; no matter how hard or far Lucius looked, he couldn’t spot a trace of Harry or the cane. He shivered again, and slowly moved up against the doorway so he could look down both ends of the hallway without exposing his back.

As if a filter had been lifted, sound slowly began to return. There were the usual background noises of pebbles rattling over the floorstones, water dripping, the vague scurrying of small animals, but very gradually Lucius began to detect a distinctly different set of sounds. They at first seemed to be coming from above him, but then they were on the same level as him, and rapidly approaching. He looked about again, but Harry still refused to appear.

So he was bait again. He wasn’t foolish enough to think Potter would have simply abandoned him here, where he had a chance of escape, so that was the only other possibility. Lucius straightened and tidied himself up as best he could, mainly as a way to occupy his hands. He had a lingering desire to look his best despite the situation, but that habit seemed ridiculous now; whichever colleague he was about to meet wouldn’t live long enough to appreciate it.

A particularly large pest was startled by the approaching person and leaped out in a scatter of rubbish that sent some pieces flying within range of Lucius’ sight. He heard someone gasp and slowly stepped out to where he could be seen.

Narcissa’s pale face floated several yards down the corridor. It spasmed in fear; her wand came up and her mouth opened just as Lucius said her name.

He threw himself back to the side of the doorway so the _Stupefy_ spell just missed him. And he stayed there, pressed tightly to the stones. He felt their dampness quickly soak his shirt and chill him to the bone, while patches of slime coated his palms and oozed revoltingly between his fingers.

“Lucius?” Narcissa finally said.

“What are you doing here? You need to go,” he hissed. He glanced frantically about, but the lack of anything—anything that would indicate Harry—only made him more anxious. “Draco’s still alive, and—”

“You know where he is?” She walked quickly forward…with wand still aimed at him, he was blackly amused to note. Her other hand twisted nervously in her spotless robes. “What are _you_ doing here? Voldemort’s had two of us on six-hour shifts here since—”

Lucius looked upwards. If he strained his ears, he could hear something that sounded like footsteps, but the noise was erratic and faded in and out. “Who else is—never mind. Narcissa, what do you _think_ I’m doing here? Potter’s around and he’ll kill you the moment he finds you, and _you_ need to go find Draco, damn it.”

“Draco’s done something.” In the green light, she looked like a wax doll down to her wide, beautiful, hollow eyes. Her wand dipped, then rose again. “Voldemort called me in specifically and told me Draco was officially an enemy of the Ministry. He’s to be killed on sight—what did you do this time, you overconfident fool? What did you do? _What did you do?_ ”

With each repetition of her question, Narcissa took a step closer. Her voice swung in wider and wider arcs, and her wand did the same so it was easy for Lucius to grab it in one hand, her wrist in the other, and have her wand before she could even make an attempt to scratch out his eyes.

He slapped away her nails and they both stumbled back, though he recovered more quickly; he was a bit more accustomed to working around shocking surprises at this point. Lucius whipped up the wand and jabbed it at her face, nipping her next lunge in the bud. “Narcissa. Draco’s had nothing to do with me for a long time, and hopefully that’ll save him. Hopefully that’ll save our family. Now, if you have any desire to survive this, you’ll find him and help him with whatever it is that he is doing.”

He would’ve sent her away at that point, but she spoke up before he could mouth the spell. “And what will you be doing?” she snapped. “Will you come back a few months from now to drop off more orders?”

Sometimes Narcissa could be an incredibly blind woman. It had been one of the reasons Lucius had decided on her—that could be a boon to those who wanted to push one and only one agenda—but right now, he wished she would simply pull her head out of the sand. “Look at me, Narcissa.”

She actually did look at him. Her mouth shut with a click, and for several seconds her eyes rapidly flicked over his face, down to his neck and then back up. For his part, he was so surprised that he didn’t take advantage of the pause to send her away.

Finally Narcissa drew herself back and up, the lines of her face settling into a strange, tired sympathy. It was about as warm as the waters of Antarctica, but it was sympathy nonetheless. “So you’ve finally overplayed your hand, and no chance to recover yourself,” she said quietly. “I always thought I would laugh.”

“There isn’t a table on which to play now,” Lucius sharply replied; she’d both hit the point and missed it entirely, as usual. He stopped wasting time and pointed her wand at her shoes. “ _Portus_.”

Her shoes momentarily glowed blue, then returned to normal. Narcissa opened her mouth and took a step forward, then vanished. With any luck, she’d appear on the street outside of the Catacombs.

Lucius sank back against the wall, absently fingering her wand. The extra effort needed to use a wand not his own had left him short of breath, and the effort needed to deal with Narcissa had further sapped him.

“That was interesting,” said a voice quite nearby. Unsurprisingly, it turned out to be Harry, who was leaning against the wall and staring down at Lucius. He glanced at the wand Lucius held.

Without a word, Lucius held it out to him. He resisted a little when Harry took it, but let go before Harry did again. Then he slowly stood up.

Harry flipped the wand once, then made it disappear. “I sent it back to her,” he said. “Draco doesn’t seem to hate her so much as he does you.” 

He slewed about and walked out onto the ledge, then reached back and took Lucius by the elbow. A second later, they were down in the pit and on the far side of it. They exited through a hallway half-filled with boulders and picked their way along it while Lucius tried not to jump at every crumbling shower of stones. This section wasn’t stable. “There’s someone else here.”

“Yeah, Bellatrix Lestrange. I tripped her into a stairwell. There was this tapestry over it, so she thought it was solid. She’s not dead yet, but I think she deserves some more for Sirius, so I’ll come back later,” Harry casually informed Lucius. He glanced over his shoulder with oddly curious eyes. His fingers slid down to Lucius’ wrist to accommodate the narrowing of the passage, which forced them to go in single-file. “I used to be a little jealous of Draco—at least, when it came to having parents. Just the fact that he had them…then again, they’re you and her, so that was stupid.”

They rounded a turn and were confronted by a solid mass of rubble. It completely packed the hallway, and no matter how Harry raised or turned the cane in his other hand, the light showed no way in. He let out an annoyed sigh and dropped Lucius’ wrist, then handed Lucius the cane. Lucius was so dumbfounded that Harry nearly had to close his fingers around it for him.

“What’s with you two, anyway? You’re all concerned about him now, wanting him to live and everything, but I always got the impression that you were a…what’s it…‘death before dishonor’ family. Hell, you let Voldemort give him the job of killing Dumbledore, when he was bloody _sixteen_.” As he talked, Harry walked right up to the wall of rock and pressed his palms against it. He paused to take a deep breath—the shadows were pooling around him again and gathering especially thickly around his hands—then pushed. “Kind of late to have a change of heart, isn’t it?”

The rock simply parted before Harry, as if he were pushing through fog. His shoulders were straining a little beneath his coat, but he was by no means exerting all of his strength and was actually moving into the rubble at a fairly normal walking speed. At first Lucius hesitated, fearing the unstable debris would cave in after him, but as the silence mounted outside the tunnel Harry was creating, he grew too unnerved and followed after.

“Draco is a Malfoy,” Lucius hesitantly said, unsure of whether or not the question was rhetorical. Still, the sound of his voice was distracting enough for him to chance it. “There are expectations attached to that, and I…thought he could fulfill them. He should have. He’s my son. But…he’s still my son, despite that.”

“‘Despite that.’” Harry echoed Lucius’ words with a mocking laugh. “You’re a really loving father, aren’t you?”

“What would you know about it?” Lucius snapped, forgetting himself. “You died as a brash, hot-tempered teenager and clearly you’ve still no sense of greater responsibilities.”

His frayed temper had gotten the better of him so much that he didn’t notice when Harry stopped. Then Harry had him by the throat and was swinging him around so quickly that Lucius didn’t have time to defend himself. Harry suddenly released him, and where Lucius had expected rough stone there was only air, which did far worse damage. He fell backwards, landing hard on his hip before rolling to his side and curling up from the pain.

They’d breached a long, narrow room lined with pillars of carved serpents, which led to a statue at one end that Lucius could only dimly see. Bones were scattered all over the floor, and from a great dark mass in one corner issued a dreadful stink.

“Chamber of Secrets. I bet once upon a time, you would’ve felt really honored to step foot in here,” Harry snorted. He crossed the room and lifted something small and shining gold from the base of the statue, then returned to kneel beside Lucius. 

The thing he’d taken up was a gold locket with Salazar Slytherin’s seal on it, which Lucius could see quite plainly because Harry held it up so it just grazed Lucius’ cheekbone. Then he moved it down Lucius’ cheek in a strange caress that ended with him holding Lucius’ chin so the locket was pressed to its underside. Harry peered into Lucius’ face with a frown, then smiled sardonically. He lowered the locket and pulled the cane from Lucius’ hand to stroke its head along Lucius’ jaw; Lucius found himself turning into this touch till their mouths slid over each other. Very tenderly, Harry worked Lucius’ lower lip between his tongue and teeth till half-healed cuts opened and bled afresh. Then he moved roughly inward so in a moment, Lucius was pressing himself up against Harry.

“You’re bloody _hoping_ I kill you at this point.” Harry’s observation was made in a tone that was half-disgust, half-amusement. He drew back and began to stand up.

“ _Imperio_!”

The spell was badly aimed and hit Harry in the shoulder instead of Lucius, for whom it was presumably meant, but it did have the effect of knocking Harry off his feet. Then something shrieking and bloody, with long tangled hair, rushed Harry and they locked together, tumbling once over the floor. When they came up again, Harry was on top and he had Bellatrix on her back with a hand fisted in her hair. She was still screaming at him when he yanked hard and snapped her neck.

He immediately dropped her afterward and got off, wiping at the bloody scratches her nails had left on her cheek; they disappeared as his hand passed over them. Harry looked up, then froze.

When Bella had tackled him, she’d done Lucius the favor of knocking the locket from Harry’s hand. Lucius had immediately snatched it and the cane up, and now stared defiantly at Harry. “You must know I can do a little magic with this,” he shakily said, nodding at the cane. “I could do enough to get this locket away from you, and you’d have to waste time finding it again.”

“But you’d be messily, painfully, regretfully dead,” Harry breathed, slowly stalking towards Lucius. His eyes were a ferocious red, but his low, certain voice was terrifying.

“I’ll be anyway. But tell me—tell me it’ll stop here, with this generation.” This would have to end soon, one way or the other. Another few moments and Lucius would drop the locket out of sheer nerves, and then he’d have lost the one chance he had. “Have your fill with me—you’ve made sure of that already—but with Draco and Draco’s children…”

Now Harry was standing nearly on top of Lucius, hands curling and uncurling in tendrils of shadows that reached hungrily upward from the floor. He appeared to be considering it. He also appeared to be a hair away from bringing all the walls down around them.

Then he was down in front of Lucius, his face a hair away, and Lucius’ gasp was trapped in his throat by Harry’s tight grip on it. Harry’s other hand was crushing the locket against Lucius’ palm, and as Lucius thought that his half-witted idea was indeed the bottom of the wall, Harry leaned forward to graze his lips along the length of Lucius’ throat. “All right,” he whispered.

The next second, Lucius was sprawled on the floor and choking, while Harry was walking, locket and cane in hand, towards the center of the chamber. He stopped there and waited for the shadows to thicken and rise till they formed a figure with one outstretched hand.

Lucius closed his eyes. There was a flash of light so bright that even with shut eyelids, he saw it. When he opened his eyes again, it was because Harry was pulling him to his feet. Harry jerked him forward and kissed him in a way that promised more such violence later, then looked around. “You’ll answer for that idiocy later,” he said. “This place is too good for that sort of thing now.”

It was…a little warmer, Lucius noticed, but he’d barely done so before the world faded out around them and they were elsewhere.


	13. The Memory of Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius remembers more, and Harry decides it’s time to cut loose before he gets even more baggage.

“You may my glories and my state depose,  
But not my griefs; still am I King of those.”  
\--Richard II, _The Tragedy of King Richard the Second_ by William Shakespeare

* * *

“This is familiar,” Sirius said.

Severus ignored the man hanging over the arm of his couch like a gargoyle. This time, he’d woken up on the couch face-down, but the residue of his latest meeting with Voldemort was still the same. It actually should have been far worse, but the Dark Lord was so agitated that he’d spread his anger liberally instead of focusing it. Even dullards like Nott had begun to notice.

“He’s lost another Horcrux, hasn’t he?”

That made Severus sit up fast, though his body roundly punished him for it. “Where did you hear that word?”

“You, wasn’t it?” Black swung his legs off the arm and idly kicked out like an errant schoolboy. If said errant schoolboy was attending classes in the land of the Four Horsemen. He flicked an overly casual glance at Severus, then looked at his dangling feet.

After a moment, he looked back and this time, he held Severus’ gaze. His pupils slowly grew large and distant and dark, as if he were seeing things only given to the damned or the dead to see.

“I think I remembered it,” Sirius finally replied. He slid off the arm without offering further explanation and began to walk out of the room.

The smart bastard…Severus’ resentment easily overcame his pain and he went after Black, catching up with him in the hallway. He seized the other man by the elbow and swung him around—Sirius was surprisingly light—so Severus could blockade him against the wall. “Don’t play games with me, Black. I’m tired of them.”

“Really? And here I thought you didn’t do anything else with your life.” Sirius slumped against the wall with his jaw tilted arrogantly upward and his eyes narrowed, and for a moment, he nearly captured his old aura of careless privilege. Then he laughed, and the harsh, bitter sound of it spoiled the illusion. “Honestly, Snape. If you want to fuck, then just go ahead. Don’t bother with the foreplay.”

Severus’ lip curled so hard that the muscle began to ache. He was hard-put to control his revulsion long enough to simply push away from the wall and stalk down the hall instead of—damn Black. Damn him, and damn the world for twisting everything so opposites were interchanged, and damn Severus himself for not being strong enough to stand up against it, but instead let himself be bent along with it.

“Hey. _Hey_.” When Severus turned around, Sirius had pushed himself from the wall and now stood with hunched shoulders in the middle of the hallway, turned so his side was presented to Severus. His body was so thin that looking at him side-on was looking at a sliver of the man. “So was I right? Are we down to one and him?”

“How do you—all right, yes, we are. And I want to know how you know. I—I _cannot_ work completely blind. No one can, and yet you and your damned godson persist in thinking that that’s possible,” Severus snapped, slewing round. He walked back up the hallway in a rising fury that locked his hands in fists so tightly that he began to feel a hot stickiness well up around his nails. “We may be wizards, but we are not miracle-workers and we are not _gods_.”

He stopped when the tips of his boots hit Sirius’ bare toes. The other man didn’t flinch at that or when Severus’ momentum carried him forward a few more inches so their noses actually brushed. Instead Sirius seemed to…be actually thinking. Perhaps. He jerked himself a few times and muttered things that made Severus suspect the man’s awareness of time was lapsing again; Severus reflexively put a hand on Sirius’ shoulder to shake him, and Sirius came to an odd, tense attention.

His eyes dropped to Severus’ hand, then rose to show a little of that preternatural consciousness that also sometimes cropped up in him. “Are you working for Harry?” Sirius asked. Then he shook his head and went on before Severus had time to answer. “Doesn’t matter what you think—you are. Listen, Snape. There’s lots of ways to kill wizards, but they’re not all stored in the Department of Mysteries, are they? But the Veil is.”

“What’s your point?” Severus exasperatedly said. “What’s different about it?”

“It goes to Hell.” For a moment, Sirius’ face whitened and his eyes…his eyes were looking on a world far worse, but also perhaps far better, than Severus could ever imagine. Then he shrugged and turned his head to the side, a touch of death in his crooked smile. “Some part of it, anyway. I’m—you see, you get in and you can’t get out so easily, even if you’re supposed to be somewhere else. It’s just how they made the place. So—”

“—so you’ve been sent back to carry out some task before you’re freed. Like Harry.” Severus couldn’t help taking a step back.

Sirius’ smile widened unpleasantly when he noticed. “What, afraid I’ve infected you? Don’t worry. You only get out under specific contractual obligations, and mine don’t include you. And it’s not trading for freedom, you idiot. I’m _dead_. That’s unchangeable no matter what I do. After this I go back to being dead. But—” his voice had gradually hardened, and now it softened suddenly “—I have to see Harry one last time. That’s why I agreed.”

It took several seconds before Severus could formulate any sort of reply, but there was no pause at all between when Sirius spoke and when Severus reacted. He was a little disgusted, but more surprised, to find anger and grief mixed into his reaction. “You die?”

“I told you you’d miss me. Hate the idea of being the only one left, do you? With not even an enemy around to remind you of old times?” It would have been better if Sirius had stayed on that line of thought and tempted Severus’ temper till it overwhelmed the odder feelings in him, but as usual, Black did what was worst for Severus and turned serious again. “I need to see Harry,” he said in an insistent tone. “That’s the only reason I’ve been putting up with you. Let me see him, and I’ll go to Voldemort tomorrow and that’s the end of your worries.”

“That’s the end…” Severus found the implications there worrying. “You never answered my damned question, Black. And I think I deserve that, considering what I’ve had to put up with from _you_.”

Sirius started to snap something in return, then rocked back on his heels. He smiled like a wolf. “Always watching out for your end. I’ll tell you if you tell me that you can get me to Harry before we go to Voldemort. Because damn it, that’s the _only_ reason I’m doing this and time’s running out, you fucking selfish bastard. If I don’t, then you can be damn sure I’ll take you with me.”

“Selfish?” Severus incredulously repeated. His temper, only barely mended from its snap a moment before, gave way again and with even greater violence. “Of all people, you—never mind. Never mind—don’t you think I know that time’s running out? Your godson tasked me to find those damn Horcruxes, but have I? No, not really, because I’ve had to spend all my time tending _you_. And he’s not been in to tell me what he’s been doing to keep Voldemort in an uproar, which makes trying to find out anything difficult—nor has he left me any way to contact him—”

Black was regarding Severus with dark amusement thinly layered over impatience. “You said he might go to Grimmauld Place. I remember that.”

Caught in mid-flow, Severus stammered embarrassingly for several seconds before he regained control of himself, and then only partially so surges of frustration and anger repeatedly broke through. The first two attempts he made at replying were total failures because of that, and the third, successful try was made in a seething voice so infuriated that Sirius actually flinched. “Grimmauld Place. Yes. I did say that. I can’t get in.”

“Why would you be able to?” Sirius calmly asked.

Severus clamped his teeth together till they were on the verge of snapping. Then he loosened up, and was about to reply when Sirius beat him to it.

“Or should I say—why don’t you want to go? Except I’m not really interested. Just send me, damn it—you can put a time constraint or whatever you’d like to make sure I come back, but—”

“I am going with you, as you haven’t fully explained to my satisfaction what you are,” Severus said very slowly and carefully. “But we can only spare a few hours at most—I have no idea when Voldemort might call on me—and I cannot guarantee that Harry will show.”

Sirius shrugged and turned away. “I’m willing to take that.”

“Fool.” Severus turned on his heel and stalked towards his laboratory. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. Try to retain your memory for that long, because I am not looking for you if you wander off.”

Why didn’t he want to go? Well, that showed the limits of Black’s perception, however much more it had been stretched by his…unique experiences. By this point, Severus’ defenses felt stretched so far and so thin that a child ought to have been able to know why. Because Sirius might claim that he only put up with Severus to get to Harry, but his actions in Severus’ bed proved differently…and Severus might claim that that was a success, since Black’s dependency on him meant Harry would be more likely to spare him, but he was beginning to fear it hadn’t stayed a one-way road.

And because, Severus viciously thought, once Sirius and Harry met, then that was the start of the falling curtain. Severus had been through too many battles and wars not to know when the turning point came, but before there’d been far more people on the stage. Now…now it was almost saddening how one came to depend on hatreds. Depend on them, and wish for them to linger because emptiness was so very much worse.

It was amusing, he decided. For all his vaunted aloofness, he’d never managed to spare himself from the consequences of any fight.

* * *

Much to Lucius’ surprise, they didn’t end up in any place he recognized, or even in any location that contained Death Eaters upon which Harry could vent his fury. Instead they went from Hogwarts to a nondescript street somewhere in Muggle London, and from there into a shabby but not particularly noticeable Muggle house.

“Draco used this place to meet with resisters,” Harry said as they passed through the doorway. He glanced down at a dark stain on the floor, then made an elaborate show of stepping over it. “When he wasn’t drinking himself under the table, anyway.”

“I thought we were going to see Severus and your godfather.” Lucius looked around the inside once, then did his best to ignore it. The rooms were cramped and derelict, and if Draco had seen this place as a better alternative, then…it was better not to think of Draco, either.

Harry stopped and turned about so fast that Lucius almost ran into him. Something blurred about the level of their chins, and then a hard, blunt object was prodding at Lucius’ throat. He carefully backed up a few inches—slowly, so if Harry took offense to that, he wouldn’t push too far into Lucius’ throat.

After a moment, Harry stepped back as well and casually flipped the object in his hand as he lowered it. Then he snapped his fingers still to show what he was holding: Lucius’ wand.

An explanation immediately presented itself, and it was such that Lucius had difficulty not laughing hysterically. “Macnair’s dead?”

“Yeah.” Oddly enough, Harry seemed disinterested in gloating over his possession of the wand. He wandered into the next room, came out and then ducked into the room after it. Then he stuck his hand out of the doorway to wave Lucius after him.

Once Lucius had walked in, Harry pointed at the sole piece of furniture in the room—possibly the sole piece of furniture in the house; someone had done a thorough job of stripping this place bare quite recently, as lighter patches of wallpaper and dust-free areas of the floor marked where the other chairs and sofas had been. Lucius hesitantly sat down while intently watching Harry’s face, which as it turned out ensured that he was taken completely off-guard by the spell shooting from the wand.

The force of it rocked him back in the chair. He dimly heard the chair-legs clattering as he tipped it back on two legs, then crashed it back down. A blast of intense pain hit his chest and quickly spread outwards, but surprisingly enough, it just as quickly turned into a soothing coolness. When his vision returned, he found himself slumped in the chair, breathing heavily while Harry restlessly paced around the room.

Even more surprisingly, Lucius was largely free of the various sores and aches he’d accumulated since Harry had took him from the Manor, and when he examined himself, he did in fact appear to have been healed.

“Do you have any idea what the last one is, or where it is?” Harry abruptly asked. He glanced at Lucius long enough to catch Lucius’ headshake, then strode over to the window. There he leaned against the sill and parted the curtains with one hand. His other hand suddenly tossed the wand to Lucius, who was too startled to catch it and let it slip to the floor. “Well, then you’re really no use to keep around, are you?”

“But you’ve never been to Severus’ estate before,” Lucius said. He leaned over to retrieve his wand, but the action was absentminded and all his attention was on Harry.

With a shrug, Harry let the curtains fall back together. He stared at the heavy folds with their moth-eaten holes and faded colors all run to black. “Yeah, but I don’t need you specifically for that, do I? You aren’t the only one who’s been there.”

A suggestion for an alternate made a chilling entrance into Lucius’ mind. “You swore you’d leave Draco out of this.”

“I mean besides both of you.” Harry sounded a touch irritated. But there was also a touch of something else, something that bent inward when pushed instead of holding rigid.

He pushed away from the sill then, and after a pause he turned on his heel and started to…dissolve. Since Lucius had never directly seen it happen before, but only had it happen to him or out of his sight, at first he didn’t recognize what Harry was doing. Then he did, and a fearsome desperation sent him lunging across the room to grab onto Harry; his knees hit the floor and his hand wrapped around Harry’s ankle just as it began to vanish. “No! No, damn you, you aren’t—”

Potter didn’t leave. Lucius had the dubious honor of seeing and feeling his hand simply fade off his wrist, but then it was back and it was glancing off Harry’s shin because a furious Harry had kicked Lucius over. His toes cracked Lucius beneath the chin and a bare second later, Lucius’ head was connecting painfully with the floor. His vision jagged out, then flooded back in just as a weight thumped down on his waist.

The first thing he saw was Harry’s eyes, blazing with fury—but not the same kind of fury as before. Not the fury that drove him to such shockingly spontaneous violence that they’d reduced Lucius, jaded from years of Voldemort’s calculated tortures, to the frightened adolescent he’d never quite been, but a fury that was directed completely inward.

“What? What, are you getting _fond_ of me, or something twisted like that?” Harry sneered. His voice at these times was always on the edge of coming explosively unhinged, but now it had a backlash to it that caught him as much as its forward force did Lucius. “God, you’re fucking insane. Well, get this through your fucked-up mind—” he grabbed Lucius by the throat and jerked him up “—there’s no cutting deals with me.”

“There’s no easy way out either—is that what you were going to say next?” Lucius snapped. Somehow he squeezed a semblance of a snarl out past Harry’s tight grip. He grabbed onto Harry’s arms and used them to pull himself up so he had the air to finish. “You can’t _leave_ me like this. Not after all that you’ve done. Not after—not—you’re responsible for this!”

Harry’s lips drew back from his teeth. He rattled Lucius till Lucius thought his neck would break under the jostling, then abruptly stopped so they were almost nose-to-nose. “I’m responsible for killing Voldemort. Like you said when we met, I’m _dead_. Dead people aren’t responsible for the living.”

“Don’t—play—word—games,” Lucius hissed. By this point, he was pulling on Harry’s arms simply to get enough breath to prevent himself from passing out. “You can’t simply walk away. There is an afterward.”

“And _afterward_ I’m still _dead_! I don’t get to come back! I don’t get to start my life over again, I don’t get to see the people I actually care about and I don’t even get to see people I hate like you until they die!” Harry shouted. Then he froze. He shut down, but not before Lucius glimpsed something like regret in Harry’s face.

After a long moment where they breathed in each other’s poisoned air, Harry simply opened his hand and dropped Lucius. He started to get up and Lucius lunged for him in a mad scramble, sliding his arms up Harry’s and trying to bring up his knees to trap Harry from behind. Of course, Harry had no problem eluding that, but he didn’t avoid whatever strange, disordered frenzy took Lucius afterward. Lucius’ mouth hit Harry’s throat half on the skin and half on the collar. Then Harry twisted away and Lucius moved forward so his mouth landed on Harry’s jaw, jostled its way to Harry’s mouth, and desperately tried to forge some kind of connection.

Harry’s fingers stabbed upward through the base of Lucius’ tail of hair to scrape at Lucius’ scalp, and the kiss briefly deepened from surface-scrabbling despair. Then Harry yanked Lucius back.

“So kill me,” Lucius rasped. He dug his nails into Harry’s coat. “You said Voldemort wouldn’t, and if you leave me here, _he_ will.”

An incredulous laugh started out of Harry’s mouth, but almost immediately dribbled away into something that was more of a choked snarl. He pulled at Lucius’ hair again, but it was indecisive whether the motion was supposed to be forward or backward. “You fucking idiot. I don’t go back to the afterlife, either. Harry Potter’s dead, and what came back isn’t him. Isn’t human, either. It’s something that collects deaths, that shows up at your bedside or your dining room table and drags you out from the middle of everything when it’s over.”

Lucius sucked in his breath and tried to understand what Harry was saying. “But you said—there was a deal, and that implies—”

“It just means I don’t have to collect on _Lucifer’s_ debts afterward. I don’t have to go out and kill people for him when they default.” Harry gave Lucius a ghastly smile. “I just wait for them to go whenever their time’s naturally up.”

“And then you reap, but never enjoy the harvest,” Lucius breathed. He momentarily closed his eyes. Of all the feelings he could be—should be having towards Harry, pity shouldn’t have been one of them. Neither should have been a fierce sense of the unjust nature of the situation…no, that did make sense. That meant Lucius had suffered himself to be broken and reset, and all for something that offered no more stability than plain life. “Then _why_ did you do this to me? You didn’t need it to get to Voldemort.”

Now Harry’s smile bled alive with ferocious rage and hatred. He suddenly reached out and ripped off Lucius’s hands to pin Lucius by the wrists to the floor. “Because I hate what I am now, and I hate you, and I can’t do anything about _me_.”

Then his mouth came down, and the rest of him followed like the whip-winds of the storm’s edge. He never let Lucius up. He ground Lucius’ wrists to powder while he shredded and slashed away what was left to Lucius, and Lucius cried out for it and welcomed him. His teeth drew blood from Lucius’ lip, jaw, shoulder even as his body drew it down to swell Lucius’ prick, then left it painfully stagnant there while Harry took Lucius in slow, erratic strokes that eviscerated him into a pleading, senseless mess. And then Harry finally let him drop.

Lucius remembered, dimly, that Harry hovered over him for some moments, and that the expression on Harry’s face was strangely pensive.

After what seemed like ages, Lucius convinced his unstrung muscles to pull together just long enough for him to roll over onto his hands and knees. What was left of his clothing was wet with sweat and twisted up against him, while a deep burn retraced its way from between his legs to high up along his spine every time he moved. He breathed with his mouth open in short, ragged pants.

Harry’d left, of course. And Lucius had dropped his wand sometime during the whole proceedings, but now it rolled to hand. He stared at it. Then he leaned down and rested his forehead against his hand and laughed, long and loud and hard. He had an idea. Courtesy of Potter, tasting of him, but he had to try it because it was his last choice.

Once he’d gotten cleaned up, he would attempt to see Voldemort. It really was the only thing left to do.

* * *

Draco barely made it through to number twelve Grimmauld Place. He didn’t think the difficulty had much to do with the house or any of its wards, but rather his damned hand—it flared up during the transfer and the resulting clash of magic almost derailed Draco into Merlin knew what. Dragging the _Portus_ spell back into line used up all his energy in the blink of an eye, so when he finally appeared in the foyer, he promptly crumpled to the floor.

He spent quite a few minutes lying on his back and trying not to breathe like his lungs were all torn up inside. Then he realized that that was exactly what he’d been trying to accomplish, the wonders of medicinal magic notwithstanding, and got out a cigarette. Managed to call up a lighting spell from his twisted wand-hand without burning off half his face. He had just enough time to take one relaxing drag before he heard footsteps nearby. “Harry? About time you showed up. I’m completely botching my attempts to self-destruct and thought I’d get some pointers from the expert.”

“It’s not Harry,” Lupin said.

For a moment, Draco was in fact quite shocked and worried. Then he shrugged, figured this sort of thing would happen, and went back to smoking. The feeling in his feet was starting to come back, so in another few minutes he’d be able to stand. “Oh. Well, I suppose one of you lot had to have a brain. Honestly, all that damn fuss and none of you thought to ask me where I found Ginny.”

“I told everyone we’d smuggled a Portkey to her in case of extreme emergency. I’m still the only one that knows you have a Portkey here.” Lupin walked over to stand above Draco. His eyes were their usual color and he didn’t seem nearly as edgy as previously, so apparently he’d dosed himself up quite thoroughly before following Draco. Nevertheless his wand was conspicuously in his hand. “I took the liberty of putting a tracking spell on it while you were recovering.”

“And I suppose you also failed to mention Granger actually made more than one Portkey for here,” Draco muttered. He rolled over onto his side, then pushed himself up on his elbow. Some ash flecked onto Lupin’s shoe; Draco didn’t bother brushing it off. “Well, Lupin. We’re here and Harry’s off killing whomever he happens to be killing now—also possibly fucking my father into insanity—so now what?”

A frown appeared on Lupin’s face. “Didn’t you come here to do something?”

“What, like plot and scheme my way into having both sides annihilate each other so I can have a bloody smoke without someone breathing down my neck?” Draco blew smoke rings up at Lupin. They rose to the other man’s waist before they ran up against Lupin and dissipated. He kept a half-hearted eye on Lupin’s face. The sensible thing to do was to use Lupin’s temper against him, then hit him before he could aim at Draco, but frankly, Draco was having a hard time concentrating on how to think like that. “Maybe I just came here because I wanted some privacy and you lot have some damned nerve—first you toss me at Harry and clearly don’t care if he kills me or not, and then you’re surprised when I’m not really all that fussed about whether you survive? Really.”

“ _Really_ ,” Lupin echoed. He walked off a bit, still watching Draco, and put one hand on the staircase. He glanced down, then looked again. All the color drained from his face. It would have been the perfect moment to hex him, except just then a surge of pain went through Draco’s hand.

It was accompanied by a bizarre crackling of white lightning; Draco smelled something burning and yanked up his hand to see a scorch mark on the floor. The whole thing was over before Draco could fully grit his teeth against it, but by then Lupin was paying attention again. So instead of attacking the other man, Draco slowly got himself into a standing position and scattered ash all over the floor. “Right there. So Harry’s not been back yet. He would’ve cleaned up the blood.”

“Would he?” Lupin abruptly raised his head and looked at Draco. His eyes held a tightly compressed fury that didn’t seem to be directed towards Draco. “I thought…he tried to reach out to me, when I saw him, but he smelled too…so I thought whatever had happened to him, he still cared. It was only that circumstances were pinning him down, like they do all of us. But Ginny and Hermione…we’re being killed and he has to know something of it, at least. But he’s done nothing about it.”

Draco didn’t reply, since he didn’t hear an explicit question in Lupin’s words and wasn’t inclined to share his own speculations regarding Harry. He stuck his cigarette between his lips and looked at his hand: some of the bandages, which were supposed to keep the damn thing from going off like that, had come unraveled. He did his clumsy best to re-wrap them to cover as much of his hand as possible, then tied off the bandage around his wrist.

“Don’t try to run,” Lupin suddenly said. He stepped off the stairs and favored Draco with a look so ironic it was almost sympathetic. “Believe me, you can’t outrun this. It’s nice to think you can always opt out, but I don’t think even death is an obstacle.”

“Thanks for the lecture, but I already got it from Harry,” Draco dryly replied. He shoved his still-aching hand beneath his arm. His fingers didn’t bend. Compared to everything else, this detail was relatively minor, but nevertheless he felt a surprising swell of revulsion and frustration at it. “So is that it? I’m not up to the evil mischief you think I am, so you’re going to haul me back to your squalid little fight? Do I have to watch you all pretend you’re still better than me, pretend that you can still hold the moral high ground and win this? Merlin. At least Harry has the right idea about that.”

“Harry?” They had company, and it came suddenly crashing up the basement stairs to swing so madly through the doorway that Draco thought it’d snap itself against a nearby table. But no, the man righted himself just in time and turned mad dark eyes on Draco. “Where is he?”

Lupin had turned white again, but of course, the situation intervened a second time to keep Draco from hexing him and at least _trying_ to get free of this whole disaster instead of resigning himself to it. “Sirius,” Lupin finally croaked.

There was someone else with Sirius Black. They’d continued walking so quietly that it was only because Draco was now intently listening for footsteps that he heard them. They abruptly stopped when Lupin spoke, then slowly started again. Draco moved around to see.

“Well, Professor. I see it’s going to be a full madhouse this—” Draco started.

Snape didn’t hesitate. He already had his wand leveled. “ _Stupefy_.”

The _bastard_ , was Draco’s last thought.


	14. Two Roads Converged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the eve of battle, what do the damned have to say?

“Haven’t you heard what we have lived to learn?  
Nothing so new—something we had forgotten:  
 _War is for everyone, for children too_.”  
\--“The Bonfire,” Robert Frost

* * *

The first thought Severus had upon seeing Draco was that they’d stumbled into a nest of resisters. Lucius clearly hadn’t believed Draco would remain loyal to the Death-Eaters, and perhaps the resistance had found a way to get into Grimmauld place again—perhaps they’d found Ginny and that Horcrux. Perhaps Harry had, for whatever reason, decided after all to lend an active hand to the resisters. Perhaps Severus was terribly beyond the loop of knowledge and consequently extremely paranoid. At any rate, he couldn’t take any chances, but Sirius had run too far ahead too fast.

Since he couldn’t grab Black and make a quick retreat, Severus did the next best thing and sent Draco collapsing to the ground beneath a _Stupefy_ spell. He was already pivoting to take on whomever Draco had been talking to—the walls absorbed sound in odd ways so even at the last step before the top, Severus hadn’t been able to positively identify the second man—but suddenly a hard grip seized and forced his wand down. Sirius had slewed about to put himself between Severus and the other wizard. “Are you mad?” he demanded.

“Less than you, at least,” Severus snapped back. He stepped back so he could dodge behind the corner of the wall if necessary. He yanked at his hand as well, but couldn’t free himself from Sirius’ grip. “How did they get in here? What’s going on? Black, we _cannot_ afford to miss the appointment with V—”

“I think I know that better than you.” Once again, that odd, darkly prescient look passed over Sirius’ face. Then it dissolved in a wash of confusion as he glanced down at Draco. “Is that that prick Lucius?”

Over his shoulder, the other dark figure in the room slowly tottered into the light. Remus Lupin had seen much better days when he’d merely been an unemployable vagrant of a wizard: now his hair was nearly all gray with bits of brown in it, and the gray had a peculiarly feral life to it in how it slashed both bits of light and shadow into it. His skin was waxen and pulled too tightly over his bones, but a hectic flush shone through it, as if some internal fire was consuming him from within to without. His disbelieving eyes were fixed on Black. “Sirius?” he gasped.

Sirius jerked up his head, then turned to face Lupin. The hand he had on Severus’ wrist loosened and slid upward to circle Severus’ elbow. “…Remus,” Sirius said after some moments had passed. He didn’t sound entirely sure of himself. “What the hell are you doing here? Have you seen Harry?”

“Sirius, you died. And—and Draco said they’d brought you back, but he’s always got half an ear for what’ll suit him best for us to hear, and—and you’re _alive_. Merlin’s beard.” Lupin abruptly crossed the remaining space and attempted to take Sirius into his arms.

Much to Severus’ surprise, if also pain, Sirius’ reaction was to quickly back up onto Severus’ feet. He fumbled himself off a moment later, but continued forcing Severus back till Severus had to put out a hand to keep himself from being trapped against the side of the basement doorway. “Remus, no. You’ve got to go,” he said.

The urgency in his voice had a pulse, like a caged and frightened living thing. It stopped Lupin, though he clearly didn’t like it, and made him take another look at Severus. He’d had his wand in his hand from the beginning, but now he seemed to remember it. “What are you doing, Severus?”

Still with the trace of politeness, only before the werewolf hadn’t wielded it quite so much like a blade. Severus surreptitiously twisted against Sirius’ hold again, but couldn’t break it. Instead he ended up drawing Sirius against him so he had to turn his head quickly aside to avoid having his nose smashed into Sirius’ hair. He smelled its dull, sickly-sweetish odor anyway, like a well-used funeral parlor. “Going, I hope. And you’ll do the same, Lupin. We can’t waste time.”

“I’m sorry, Moony. I’m sorry, but I can’t—damn him, the bastard never said it’d be this hard,” Sirius swore, his voice abruptly dropping to grate against the floorboards. He was speaking of Lucifer, of course, but Lupin clearly took it to mean Severus or Voldemort.

Severus saw the spell beading like a glowing teardrop around the end of Lupin’s wand and tried a third time to wrench free. Sirius fiercely resisted him, then suddenly loosened, but at the same time he lunged towards Lupin and the twist his whole body made effectively jerked Severus to a painful stop. It nearly sent Severus to his knees, for that matter.

“ _No_. No, Remus. Look at—look at me.” Now Sirius did sink down, and took Severus with him. It appeared he’d gotten hold of Lupin’s wand and clamped his hand over the tip so the werewolf had to bear up impotently beneath the progression of events, white-faced with pinched nostrils. “You shouldn’t have seen me. You need to go. Forget I was here and find a cave and sleep through the next few days. It’ll be over soon.”

“What will? What are you doing—is he making you do something?” Lupin glowered at Severus. If he’d ever truly felt guilt and remorse towards Severus, instead of resentment for all Severus had done in return, then that phase had disappeared quite a while ago. All his eyes held now was a simmering, studied hatred. “I’m not leaving, Sirius. I can’t—you have no idea. We’re dying so fast, and if I can do something, if I can keep another one from happening—”

A choked, ragged sound emitted from Sirius. Then he yanked hard on Lupin’s wand so Lupin, who’d been crouched back on his toes, fell forward onto his knees. Like one beast seeking comfort from another, Sirius pressed up close against Lupin and rubbed his face against Lupin’s neck, shoulder, cheek. It was disgusting, but it was also filled with the first real passion Severus had seen in Sirius; his obsession with Harry was simply that. And his snarling and clawing at Severus had, it seemed, never been more than old habits moving the puppet; Severus felt the bile rise at that realization. He always gave more than he received, no matter the situation. Even hatred couldn’t be depended on.

“You are: yourself. You’ll die if you stay, and now that I’ve seen you, I—” the catch in Sirius’ throat trapped the word ‘remember’ “—you’ve got to live. You can’t take chances. Someone’s got to be around afterward, to see to things when there’s the time. But I’m dead, Moony. I’m dead and gone and this…this is just wrapping up loose ends.”

Lupin’s hand came up to fist in Sirius’ hair. “It _can’t_ be. Why else would you come back?”

“I’m back for the war,” Sirius gasped. Laughed, more accurately, with a thousand nightmares riding out into the air by way of it. “I’m back for that, and nothing else. When the war ends, then I end—but you won’t. You won’t, but you’ve got to go.”

“I don’t know anything but the war now.” The pale, roughened fingers with their motley collection of half-healed cuts and scrapes slowly loosened from Sirius’ hair. Despite all his inclinations otherwise, at heart Lupin wasn’t formed to contradict his more fiery friends. He was slowly drawing away. “You don’t know. It’s all changed. I let myself be changed, so that I’m better for this world.”

“So you can change back, if you’ve changed once before. You’re not fixed in it—you can do that still.” Sirius abruptly pushed himself back just as Severus had gotten himself righted, sending both of them slightly off-balance. He recovered more quickly because he pressed Severus to the floor and used him for support. “Go.”

Lupin threw himself backward, but with an unexpected snarl that was laced through and through with anguish and anger. “What if I don’t want to be the one that has to live?” he cried out. “It’s no victory.”

“It’ll be for _me_ ,” Sirius snarled back. His old selfishness rose in him; Severus found that peculiarly comforting to see, in the middle of this ferocious farewell that was so clearly a child of their grotesque circumstances. “I’ll know we won. So go.”

One last time, Lupin tried to protest, but whatever expression Sirius wore stopped it in Lupin’s mouth.

“And take Draco with you,” Severus finally said. “I don’t know what he’s doing here, but I don’t want his interference.”

Sirius tightened his grip on Severus’ arm as a reprimand, and Lupin threw up his head to scorch Severus with his eyes, but neither of them commented. Finally Lupin rose, moving like an enfeebled man, and lifted Draco so he could get his arm under the man.

“I could almost hate you now,” he told Sirius in a hard tone. Then his voice broke, and he took a step towards Sirius. “Please—”

But Sirius flinched away. Lupin’s face froze, and he shut his mouth. He dragged Draco back and, with a last reproving, agonized look back, he left.

The moment Lupin was gone, Sirius slumped forward. He let go of Severus and dropped to his knees so his tangled mane of hair fell over his face and hands. His shoulders started to shake.

Severus got up, wincing at the blood flooded back into his arm and woke all sorts of pain. He slid his hand beneath Sirius’ arm and pulled so the other man rose a little. “Come. Harry’s not here, so we need to return before Voldemort misses me.”

“And that’d just be horrible, wouldn’t it,” came from the top of the staircase.

Sirius’ head rose. His cheeks were streaked with silvery dampness, but his eyes were blazing. “ _Harry_ ,” he said.

* * *

Voldemort regarded Lucius for a long time before he finally spoke. “I find your story impossible to believe.”

Lucius felt strangely relaxed, to the point where the ropes binding him to the chair barely had any bite at all. It didn’t matter what Voldemort believed; Lucius believed that Harry had meant what he said about Voldemort not being the one to kill him, and moreover, he believed that nothing Voldemort could do to him would even begin to make a dent in what Harry had done to him.

“Potter’s quite insane, my lord,” he said. “Insane, but nevertheless, insanity is rooted in what one once was. He shows traces of his old tendencies to favor those he knows and cares for. I’m sure you’ve noticed that he’s avoided making contact with the resistance, undoubtedly because he’d rather not attract attention to them. Either from you or from his superiors.”

A series of dry clicks signaled Nagini’s approach, and Voldemort leaned down to stroke the top of her head. “Your reasoning still doesn’t explain why he would let you go. Unless you’re suggesting he has developed some sort of…affection for you.”

When Lucius shrugged, the ropes holding his arms behind the chair cut deeply through his shirt and into his flesh, but he barely registered the pain. “I don’t pretend to understand Potter, my lord, but what I’ve observed is that he has difficulty not developing sympathies for those he comes to know better. Especially if they don’t behave in a way that fosters his previous impression of them.”

The embroidery on Voldemort’s robes gleamed dully as he shifted himself in his seat. Nagini rose and coiled the upper third of herself in his lap while he expressionlessly, intently regarded Lucius. She didn’t quite hide the fact that Voldemort had visible injuries, which had to have come from his fight with Harry.

“You always did have a flair for creating that sort of misapprehension, Lucius.” Voldemort spoke calmly, but the set of his shoulders was tense and not relaxed, and he continually moved his hands over Nagini. He was very worried, and hiding it badly.

“It could be very useful to you, my lord.” Lucius stiffened as the ropes began to slide around him, but calmed as soon as he understood that they were withdrawing and not tightening. He leaned forward to relieve the stress on his back, rubbing at his wrists and rotating his shoulders.

It was dark in the room, but that did not prevent Lucius from noting the change in Voldemort’s eyes. Likewise, Nagini turned to fix beady, suspicious eyes on Lucius. “How so?” Voldemort asked.

“He’s after your Horcruxes. He’ll kill to get them, but so far he’s not had to kill someone he…doesn’t feel only hatred towards,” Lucius said. He lifted his hands to tuck his hair behind his ears. “Thank you, my lord, for releasing me.”

“What about Ginevra Weasley?” Voldemort’s fingers rippled slowly, deliberately over Nagini’s back.

It took a moment for Lucius to remember why Voldemort would mention her name. Then he carelessly shrugged. “That actually wasn’t Harry’s doing. I was there when he learned about her death, and he was furious. More likely it’s the resistance. Or perhaps someone within our ranks, who’s begun to believe he might need to change allegiances.”

“I see.” Voldemort continued to show no emotion, but somehow Lucius suspected that his first candidate for a traitor and Voldemort’s coincided. “So you suggest that I give my Horcruxes into your keeping.”

“Potter had his chance to kill me, my lord. He didn’t. You are, as always, free to see for yourself,” Lucius said.

And of course, Voldemort did. His touch in Lucius’ mind was brutally cold and it was all Lucius could do to bear up beneath it and make sure that Voldemort saw the version of events that Lucius had carefully edited, and not the more complete memory. Just when Lucius was beginning to think he wouldn’t be able to hold, Voldemort withdrew.

Lucius collapsed back into his chair, breathing so hard that his ribs ached. He watched Voldemort through blurred eyes.

“Your idea has some merit,” Voldemort finally said. He was apparently satisfied with what he’d seen.

He picked up Nagini and set her on the floor, then stood up and swept towards the back of the room. From there he retrieved a long, slender box warded with so many protection spells that Lucius could make out no details of its appearance aside from its shape. Then he glided slowly back towards Lucius while his fingers delicately unraveled each spell. By the time he stopped in front of Lucius, he had undone them all so that Lucius could see a plain hinged box of unremarkable wood.

Voldemort opened it as if it contained the world itself. Nestled inside was an ancient-looking wand, which he carefully lifted out before tossing the box aside as if it were so much trash. “The wand of Rowena Ravenclaw. One of the Horcruxes.”

“I greatly treasure your trust in me—” Lucius began.

Suddenly he was out of the chair and landing hard on the floor in a sprawl. He quickly righted himself, only to have a hard sole come down on his throat. It just avoided the pressure needed to crush his windpipe.

“I am flattered, Lucius, but I don’t trust you. You still have a connection to Potter that I can sense,” Voldemort said in a cold, savoring voice. He smiled thinly. “However, your idea does have genuine merit. But you’ll not be charged with the duty of protecting the Horcrux—you will _be_ it, since I can always trust in your drive for self-preservation.”

Then Voldemort lifted the wand, and for an almost unending second, the world was nothing but intense, excruciating pain for Lucius.

He came back to himself with only Nagini for company. At the far end of the room, the door was just shutting behind Voldemort.

Lucius lifted one hand, but had to quickly put it down again because the aftershocks were still too painful. The corners of his mouth began to draw up into a grim smile, and that hurt as well but he couldn’t help himself. He heard Nagini slithering closer and turned his head to see her uneasily watching him.

“Your master is one of the greatest fools I’ve ever met,” he told her in a hoarse whisper. He didn’t make any more attempts to rise. He could wait now; there was no particular hurry until Harry finally showed up again, as he now had to.

His drive for self-preservation…Lucius nearly laughed. Voldemort was so obsessed with immortality that he only had a very narrow understanding of what self-preservation might actually mean. There were, after all, worse things than death.

* * *

Silence filled the house. It was a charged, tightly coiled silence that made Severus tighten his fingers around his wand.

Then Harry, face white and eyes a sickeningly brilliant green, slowly came down the stairs. He held onto the banister with both hands. “Sirius?”

“Oh, Merlin.” Sirius was up the stairs and embracing his godson in a second. He feverishly greeted Harry, his hands unable to stay in one place any more than they’d been able to on Lupin. “Oh, I’m so sorry, so sorry.”

“I thought you were with-- _Snape_ ,” Harry suddenly hissed, catching sight of Severus.

Severus threw himself back around the corner and began to say the spell that would see him home—never mind Black; Severus was more willing to chance Voldemort’s fury than Potter’s—but a wave of shadows crashed into him and roughly washed him back into the foyer. He felt his wand being pulled from him and tried to grab it back, but instead had the skin ripped off his palm. His wand vanished into the masses of shadows, which immediately fastened onto his bleeding hand and pinned him to the ground by it. He could feel tens of little mouths sucking at the blood.

“I came back here because I thought Draco would be moping about, and willing to give me directions to your new house. Would’ve liked to see how he greeted you, but I promised not to drag him about anymore and I do keep my promises, unlike others,” Harry said. He pushed Sirius aside enough to sneer at Severus. “I should have known. If you had Sirius, you’d try to use him to get at me.”

The shadows humped up as if gathering themselves for a last attack. Then Sirius put his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Wait,” he said. “You can’t kill him.”

If Severus had had the least bit of energy to spare to be amused, he would have been at Harry’s reaction: Harry started, then grabbed Sirius and pulled him forward to stare into his eyes. The shadows’ hold on Severus slackened a bit thanks to Harry’s divided attention, and Severus took the opportunity to drag himself free. Though where he could go without his wand was limited, so in the end, he might as well have let himself be gobbled up by the dark.

“He’s not got any hooks in you,” Harry finally said, looking and sounding puzzled. His hands slid from Sirius’ shoulders up to frame Sirius’ face, and the one thumb that Severus could see began to slowly stroke Sirius’ cheekbone. “He’s not controlling you. Neither’s Voldemort, but there’s _something_ …”

“Don’t do anything to that, James.” Sirius winced almost before he’d finished speaking. He gave himself a rough shake, then looked apologetically at Harry. “Sorry, Harry. I…where I was…it fucked up my memory a bit. But don’t touch that, all right? You can’t do anything about it, and what’s got to be done has to be done. But oh, Merlin, at least I get to see you a last time.”

Then he pulled Harry towards him and buried his face in Harry’s neck, hands squeezing up and down Harry’s arms. Harry, however, was not quite so free with his relief and stared down at Sirius with furrowed brow. His hands gradually lifted and came to rest on Sirius’ back, where they slowly turned bloodless as he increased the force with which he pressed down, but he seemed withdrawn and thoughtful.

Likewise, the shadows sluggishly flowed back to their places till once again, it looked like a perfectly normal room. Severus didn’t really put his trust in that, but he decided he’d have a decent chance of standing up without being knocked over, and did so. He stayed against the wall.

“They said Voldemort brought you back. As a bribe or something, to keep me from killing him,” Harry murmured.

“He thought that you were rather too attached to Black, and would align yourself with him in exchange for having your godfather. Evidently, Voldemort wasn’t speaking entirely from foolish conjectures,” Severus said. He pulled down his sleeve and did his best to staunch the trickle of blood that still welled up out of his lacerated palm.

Harry looked sharply at Severus, but he didn’t make the slightest effort to release his godfather. Instead he turned to Sirius, who was finally pulling back, and asked: “Is that true?”

“No. Yes. I don’t—it’s all in my head, but they just crammed it in there and then I was through.” Sirius’ fingers continued to flex on Harry’s shoulders, but they slowed a bit when Harry wrapped his hand around the back of Sirius’ neck and used it to rub at Sirius’ nape. “But I’m here—I’m here to get that last piece of soul out of Voldemort. For you. They said you were being sent back for good, and that was what you were doing—getting those pieces—and it’d help you.”

“I am…but that bastard. That fucking goddamn _bastard_!” It was a wonder Harry didn’t tip over and send them tumbling down the stairs, his fury was so great. As it was, he teetered a bit and Sirius took a startled step away from him. Then he got himself under control, and then…then he looked at Sirius with eyes full of raw pain and misery. “Sirius—this means I have to kill you. That bastard. I didn’t want to stay on with him afterward, and he couldn’t force me so he does this to me.”

For a moment, Sirius had nothing to say. He clearly hadn’t thought that part through, and the force of his sudden comprehension visibly rocked him. He held Harry out at arm’s length from him and stared first incredulously, then furiously and finally sadly. His mouth worked several times before he managed to grimace a smile and reply.

“Well, I knew I had to go back at any rate. Dead people don’t get to return for good. But I’d rather be returned by your hand than anyone else’s.” Black let out the withered ghost of a chuckle. “I thought I’d have to put up with Severus doing it. Merlin knows he’d be ecstatic for the chance.”

“Then Merlin knows very little, but then again, he’s long departed and clearly, the dead gain no wisdom either,” Severus snapped. He no longer cared if Harry tried to kill him; he could not stay in this room and watch them any longer.

So he walked out. The shadows spit his wand out at his feet, and he slowed only to take it up. His shoulders remained hunched against the blow he confidently expected, but it never came.

Severus found an armchair in one of the other rooms on the same floor. He spent a mindless few minutes freeing it of all pests and pernicious spells, then sat down in it. After a brief period of staring into space, he had to acknowledge the reality of the situation. He put his elbows on his knees, then dropped his head into his hands.

A good while later, someone walked up to him and stopped. He rubbed at his eyes a last time before raising his head to look viciously at whomever it was.

It was Sirius, and Sirius was absently rubbing at a fresh cut along his jaw. The first thing Severus thought of was Harry seducing Lucius via torture the first time they’d encountered the new Harry Potter. “Was it a good last time?” he sneered. “Your parents must be happy—their wayward son ended up with the Devil’s get, after all.”

Sirius stiffened, then made as if to hit Severus. But he pulled back at the last moment and instead dropped into a squat. He stared up into Severus’ face with an expression that was wonder, black amusement and the inevitable pity. “Don’t tell me you’re _jealous_. That’s even more twisted than I gave you credit for.”

“This is even more twisted than Voldemort could ever do,” Severus replied. He smiled maliciously at Sirius. “And the miracle of it is that you both apparently agreed to these terms. Lucifer didn’t even have to force you. He just took advantage of your ignorance and inability to ask the right questions beforehand.”

“You goddamn—no, you’re not changing the subject on me.” Then Sirius moved in, as if that would actually do anything.

His mouth hit Severus on the side of the jaw and lingered hotly before he brushed it sideways to take it away just before it would’ve hit Severus’ ear. Despite himself, Severus shivered and put out one hand to circle Sirius’ arm.

“You still hate me,” Sirius murmured.

“Obviously.” Severus put up his other hand to press at the side of his face. His skin felt too tight and too dry, and his mouth seemed to taste of nothing but ashes now. “You at least receive some sort of compensation for your horrors, however fleeting. But I…I can sympathize with Lupin, actually, which is yet another sign of the awful state of this world. And that is what I’ll be left with afterwards? This monstrous mockery of a country, with its crippled and scarred people? That’s my reward for surviving?”

Sirius laughed lowly, and slowly drew his cheek along Severus’ so his mouth glided back towards Severus’ lips. “You could call it practice for hell.”

After a moment, Severus allowed himself to laugh. Then he allowed himself to turn and catch Sirius’ lips, which were at first slack with surprise, but then quickly feverish and pushing. The inside of Sirius’ mouth tasted stale and too sweet, but it was better than ashes, and since it was clear that Severus would get no prizes, he would take what he could when he could. He didn’t allow himself to hope that it would be enough comfort to last him through the long absence that would follow.

When they were done, lying tangled on the floor and breathless, it was Sirius who was the first to rise. He did so tight-lipped and pale; his eyes might have been at times mad in the past, but they’d always burned with some fierce emotion—except for now, when they looked as if a dull veil had been thrown over them. “All right,” he said. “Harry’s got my blood—he can follow us now wherever we go. Let’s go back and wait for Voldemort to call.”


	15. Requiem for Innocence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world ends.

“Child of the scars of fire,  
Make us one new dream, us who forget.  
Out of the storm let us have one star.”  
\--“Prayers After World War,” Carl Sandburg

* * *

Sirius paused in front of the hallway mirror and smiled humorlessly at it. He attempted to strike a pose, but between his gaunt state and sardonic expression, his reflection only showed a mockery of a mockery. “How do I look?”

“Stop joking,” Severus said. He watched Sirius’ hands curl, then uncurl and dance restless fingers along his robes. “We’ll be late.”

“And Merlin knows you never want to keep your last date waiting,” Sirius retorted. His black humor grated on both of them, and he turned away as if he actually cared. More likely he was searching for something to think on besides where they were going, and what was going to happen.

He’d been uncharacteristically silent ever since they’d returned from Grimmauld Place. Once or twice Severus, wound up and desperately needing an outlet for all his repressed emotions, had tried to bait Sirius into a fight, but nothing had came of it. In the end, Severus had withdrawn to his lab and instead wasted too much of his most precious ingredients brewing one failure after another. He’d fallen asleep down there, then woken to find Sirius’ hungry, feverish mouth traveling down his chest and rolled the other man over. Even then, they hadn’t spoken.

In the morning, Voldemort had sent his summons, and now Sirius was apparently having a resurgence of his habitual verbal hemorrhaging in times of stress. He taunted and snapped at Severus all the way up until they Apparated into the Department of Mysteries. Then, standing in the long dark hall that led to where Voldemort awaited them, he fell silent.

Harry had been here before, so he’d have no problem getting in. According to Sirius, he’d be showing up shortly, so Severus fully intended to accompany Sirius to the door and then find some reason to excuse himself. He had considered it last night and found that he had surprisingly little stomach for witnessing the end of yet another era, even though the next one had to be better than this one.

But as they walked down the hall, Severus smelled something…odd. Normally the place had a damp, lifeless odor, but now he could detect a faintly sweetish, rotten odor.

“Somebody tell Voldemort he’s losing?” muttered Sirius.

“Shut up,” Severus quickly replied. He hurried them along, worried that Voldemort would somehow have sensed that Sirius was not the mindless puppet he was expecting. But even with that fear hanging over them, Severus’ mind kept returning to that trace of smell. He recognized it, of course: day-old blood.

Sirius bowed his head as they entered the Death Chamber and leaned heavily on Severus’ arm. His stride grew unsteady and uncertain, and a few times he made weak attempts to venture off in other directions so Severus had to pull him along. It wasn’t entirely acting, Severus suspected, and he tightened his grip on the other man.

“Severusss…” Voldemort was standing on the platform besides the veiled archway. His hands were clasped together before him and holding his wand, but once they’d gotten within a few feet of him, he lifted his right hand to motion them closer. That was when Severus noted that Voldemort had changed wands.

The other Horcrux. It was small comfort to know that Severus had indeed guessed right, even though he’d never gotten to act on his conjecture. “I’ve brought him like you asked, my lord.”

“So you have,” Voldemort whispered in a satisfied tone. He waved Severus back, and when Severus obligingly released Sirius, Voldemort came down to cup Sirius’ chin beneath his hand. He tipped up Sirius’ head to look him deeply in the eyes. “Thank you, Severus. You may go now.”

Severus didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath till he almost made the mistake of letting it out in a sigh of relief. He caught himself and forced himself to exhale slowly enough for it to seem normal as he made a deep obeisance in Voldemort’s direction. Then he backed towards the door without turning around.

He’d planned not to watch, but in the end some morbid interest made him glance back a last time before he walked out, and so he saw the shadows come racing from the walls. A moment later, Voldemort noticed and threw Sirius away from him with an angry exclamation. Before it could turn into words, a surge of shadows exploded upwards between Voldemort and Sirius, who was scrambling to his feet. “Harry! Not yet!” he screamed, as if that would make a difference.

Without any further hesitation, Severus flung himself out the door. He was halfway through the circular room that linked all the halls when he suddenly caught that smell again. At the same time, he trod heavily on a part of the floor that slid and gave way, sending him down onto his hands and knees. Severus cursed at the pain, then rolled over and angrily kicked out. Something stuck to the sole of his shoe fluttered.

He should have continued running, and left Sirius and Potter to fend for themselves. He should have finally stuck to his resolve to facilitate but _never_ participate himself, and thus emerge from at least one battle with no new scars. Instead Severus, mind awash in terror and anger and self-hatred, grabbed the scrap from his foot and brought it up close to his face.

In the dim light, he could barely see that it was a piece of cloth, but something made him look longer. Then he recognized it as part of a robe, stiff with the dried blood that Severus was smelling…Voldemort killed people out of hand when he was upset, but—but—

Somewhere behind Severus, a piece of wood snapped. It was a simple sound, but for some reason it was grossly magnified and distorted so it thundered through the walls and crashed against the ceiling. Then there came Harry’s voice, rising in a shriek. “Three down! Three!”

And Voldemort, in a hiss that cut the knees out from under all the racket so Severus could hear it as clearly as if he and the Dark Lord had been sitting down at the same table. “Silly, silly boy. Still only two.”

But if Voldemort was speaking, then Harry wasn’t referring to the piece Sirius was supposed to obtain for him. He was talking about the wand. The wand had been broken, but Voldemort wasn’t afraid—Severus’ thoughts whirled round and round his head as he staggered back to his feet. A bang behind him made him spin to look at the door to the Death Chamber just as a blast of wind rushed through it.

When it hit him, it sent him skidding across the polished floor till he crashed into one of the other doorways. His hand hit the frame and slid unevenly through a thick patch of a flaky, crusty substance, while the smell of blood suddenly intensified. Severus dug his nails into the frame and hung on till the wind died down.

“You couldn’t finish me last time, Potter. And now—now, look at your godfather. Your precious godfather.” Voldemort was purring, though his voice had a strained undertone to it: he had sustained some injuries. “I brought him back. Death, life…they’re within _my_ power.”

The bloodstains on the frame continued down to the floor, and then under the door. Half a thought came into Severus’ mind and he shoved it roughly open with his elbow to look inside. Then he flung himself back out, sleeve over his mouth, and struggled not to vomit. Davies. He was detailed to tend to this part of the Ministry, so of course the hallway hadn’t been cleaned if Voldemort had killed him.

Killed him. Murder was needed to make a Horcrux. The Ravenclaw Horcrux had been destroyed, but Voldemort wasn’t worried _because he’d moved that piece of his soul to a new one_. But what? What was it now? _Where_ was it?

It had to be relatively near, but protected. Voldemort couldn’t risk assuming that Harry wouldn’t take the piece in him, and bodiless he was much weaker and couldn’t travel far or fast. To switch from relying on one piece to the other, he’d—Severus spun around and around, staring at the many doors lining the circular room. Here. It was the most heavily warded part of the Ministry. Here.

Another blast of wind rammed into the wind and sent Severus to the ground. His wand clattered out onto the floor and he barely grabbed it in time to keep it from flying away from him. Then he rolled over and gritted out a spell to show recent usages of magic. The doorway to the Death Chamber glowed madly, but so did another one off to Severus’ right.

He scrambled to his feet and to it, casting frantic spells to rip apart the wards on it. Shards of magic recoiled from his work and lashed out at him till hot blood was running down his face and hands. Once or twice the pain dropped him to his knees, but he gritted his teeth and continued forcing his way through. Then a starburst of agony went off inside his right eye, and Severus barely got out the last syllable of his current spell before he fell forward.

Forward and through, landing in someone’s arms. Adrenaline and force of will cleared Severus’ vision so that a moment later, he could see Lucius’ pale, bruised face staring wildly down at him. “Your eye’s gone,” Lucius said. He had blood on his face, and behind him, Severus could see Nagini’s limp form. “Is Harry here?”

“ _You’re_ it—get out here,” Severus snarled. He rolled back onto his feet and got the other man by the arm, then hauled them into the Death Chamber just before the next gale roared through the place.

* * *

When Draco woke up, it was to the sounds of battle. He started to sit up in bed, then threw himself flat against the mattress just as a brilliant surge of magic passed overhead. It burned itself into the wall while he scrambled to the floor, then out the door.

Someone tried to _Avada_ him right away and he ducked, then jerked up his wand—hand—whatever and got them first. He could hear Weasleys yelling further down the hall and, after noting that the other way was a dead end, jogged towards them. “George!”

“Malfoy! Did you get Rosier?” George called back. He was interrupted midway, but continued in a strong enough voice so that Draco assumed Weasley had gotten the better of his opponent.

Draco glanced over his shoulder, then looked forward in time to nearly be brained by Patil swooping through the hall on her broomstick. Her right arm was soaked in blood and hung limply at her side, and she was holding onto the broomstick with only her knees.

“Rosier’s dead,” Draco said as he rounded the corner. He found George and a few other resisters crouched down behind a makeshift barricade of furniture and anything else they could drag into place before the front entrance, which had had its door blasted right out of the frame. The square of outside it framed showed a nighttime pastoral scene. “Farm?”

“Emmeline Vance’s. We’ve been blocked in by Death-Eaters.” As soon as Draco was close enough, George grabbed him and dragged him down. Then he failed to let go, but instead pulled Draco in to stare at him with bloodshot, angry eyes. “They’re calling for you. Says if we give you up, it’s all fine.”

It was actually a rather warm night, but at that moment, Draco was chilled to the bone. “You don’t actually believe them, do you?” he hissed. “They may want me, but then they’ll come in and slaughter you all as an afterthought.”

“I know.” George glanced over Draco’s shoulder as Fred crawled up on Draco’s other side, then grinned at Draco. His smile was a hideous parody of his old prankster’s humor. “But me and Fred, we’re thinking we’d best keep you close anyway. ‘cause it’d be even worse if you ran and we all died to protect your arse when you couldn’t keep Ginny alive. Wouldn’t it?”

Whether or not it was a rhetorical question never was decided, because just then the Death-Eaters decided to try another assault. Blood splattered over Draco’s head and dripped down the back of his neck; he tucked his crippled hand close to him and waited till footsteps were shaking the floorboards before he rose. “ _Avada Kedavra_!”

The other wizard also cast that spell, but it bounced off the shield Fred set up. George was busy stuffing various rag-covered bundles into crevices and holes in the barricade, and didn’t look up till they’d forced the Death-Eaters back again. Then he nodded, manic smile firmly plastered on his face, and started dragging Draco backwards. “Right, retreat to kitchen. Easier to defend that.”

“Bloody hell,” Draco muttered. He said it again once he’d realized the Weasley bastard had just hauled him through a puddle of brains, and saw Vance’s staring corpse rolled off to the side. She was missing the top of her head. “I need a fag.”

Surprisingly enough, one was handed to him. Draco looked up and saw Lupin staring grim-faced at him. “Make that last,” Lupin said. “That’s what we have to do. Hold out a little longer.”

To everyone else, it sounded like war-worn encouragement, but Draco heard an extra, telling undertone. He looked sharply at Lupin, but the other man turned away before Draco could ask about what had happened between him, Black and Snape.

Blue fire suddenly came pouring down the kitchen chimney, sending everyone scrambling for the other side of the room. Except Draco, who seemed to be watching in wonder as his body pivoted and cast the canceling spell. Hell. Yes, that was about right.

He lit up. “Fucking Merlin. Potter, you better hurry up.”

* * *

Harry was on one side of the room, just rising from the floor. His clothes were in tatters and one lens of his glasses was completely shattered, with only jagged fragments left like teeth in the frame. He was staring at the other side of the room, where Voldemort was standing. Voldemort had Sirius, whose contract with the Devil apparently hadn’t granted him the same preternatural strength Harry had because Voldemort was easily restraining him.

Everyone swiveled to look when Severus and Lucius came into the room. For a moment, Severus froze. Then he shook himself—it was too late to fade to the sidelines now. “Harry, it’s Lucius,” he said. He put his wand up against Lucius’ throat. “He’s the new Horcrux.”

Fury came and went over Voldemort’s face, but that was to be expected. What wasn’t to be expected was the look on Harry’s face. “You went to _him_?” he snarled.

Lucius shrugged. “I told you, you can’t leave me like that. I knew you’d have to come back if I talked Voldemort into…well, I thought he’d simply give me the Horcrux.”

Severus firmly pushed all speculation out of his mind and tightened his grip on his wand. He wanted this done and over with. “ _Ava_ \--”

He’d forgotten about the Mark on his arm. It flared to life so suddenly and so painfully that his attempts to brace up beneath it were easily beaten away. He collapsed, then curled in on himself.

A moment later the pain had dissipated just as suddenly as it’d come, but by then it was too late. He still had his wand, but a test spell showed that that was no help. A great swash of blackness separated Severus and Lucius, and it swatted his spell out of the air and ate it as a cat would with a too-slow bird. Shadows coiled and snatched at its edges, but they couldn’t make any headway.

“I see my earlier belief was correct,” Voldemort said. He’d dropped Sirius and left him surrounded by a pool of the same black stuff in order to walk towards a white, swaying Lucius. “You weren’t the only one of my Death-Eaters that Harry had meddled with. But you did come back to me.”

“Not for the reasons you thought he did,” Harry snapped. One of his arms was stretched towards Severus, and he abruptly swung it so a wave of shadows rolled towards Sirius. But it crashed up against a wall of black, and both subsided to the floor. Harry coughed and bent over slightly, then straightened.

Voldemort’s stride wasn’t as sure as it once had been, but there was triumph in his face as he looked at Lucius. As he walked forward, Lucius drew back till he hit the lowest ring of benches. Lucius had to stop there, but Voldemort continued moving forward. “It hardly matters. What does is that Lucius did come back, and offered himself for my use.”

“You jump into him and it won’t matter. You kill me and it won’t matter. Harry knows what to do.” Sirius awkwardly drew himself into a sitting position and sneered at the blackness surrounding him. Then he lifted his head to gaze at Harry.

So did Voldemort, but only briefly. Then he returned his gaze to Lucius. “Rookwood’s located where the resisters are keeping Draco,” he said. “I expect he’ll have your son soon enough.”

Severus sucked in his breath. He’d forgotten, somehow, that Voldemort would fixate on Draco—at the least, for the destruction of a Horcrux, and now also because Lucius’ face made it plain that Draco was still a weak point for him.

Behind Lucius, the translucent shadows and the opaque darkness warred back and forth on the walls. Sometimes one, then the other came streaming at him, but it became clear to Severus that neither had the strength to overcome the other. And looking around the room, he saw that Voldemort was actually stretched quite thin in keeping Harry and himself at bay, and Sirius separated from all of them. He couldn’t force Lucius towards him; Lucius would have to come willingly. Harry was in the same situation.

Lucius realized it at the same time, Severus thought. He glanced at Voldemort, then towards Harry, then back to Voldemort. “You’ll leave Draco alone if I…” he trailed off with a vague, nervous motion of his hand. He looked at Harry again, and his eyes were nakedly pleading. “He’s my son.”

“Bastard. Son of a bitch!” Sirius snarled. “Harry, just kill him already!”

But Harry was staring at Lucius with eyes that glittered with anger plus something else. Bitterness and resignation, possibly. “I promised to leave him alone, remember? He’s got to fend for himself now,” he finally said, tone vicious, but also oddly understanding. “Only thing you ever really did care about. Figures.”

Voldemort smiled. Desperate now, Severus raised his wand again, but the blackness rose off the floor and came at him so he had to scramble back. In doing so, he caught only a glimpse of something pale blurring through the air: Lucius had leaped back up onto the bench. He stood there barely long enough for Severus to see his strangely defiant smile.

“Not quite. I wanted to see you again—to see if you could do this,” Lucius said; he threw the words like a challenge at Harry. Then he threw himself backwards just as Voldemort and the blackness lunged for him.

Severus flung himself to his feet. His eyes found and watched him scream at Lucius, then slewed across the room to see the slight hesitation of the shadows in also reaching out for Lucius. But Lucius twisted as he fell through the air, aiming himself, and it was just enough to let the shadows take him first.

Someone screamed, but the sound had too much fury and grief in it to have belonged to Lucius. A brief spray of red arced upward to splatter the ceiling. Then shadows and blackness alike slid away to leave a broken, limp shell that had once been living stretched over one of the benches.

A sharp crack echoed about the room: Voldemort’s heel striking the floorstones hard as he stumbled, suddenly tottering and weak. Severus lifted his wand towards him and got off one spell before the blackness raced towards him and made him run for his life. He leaped up onto the benches, then back down in an attempt to evade them, but they were too fast. One tendril snatched up the hem of his robe and yanked so he fell heavily onto his side. It surged over his arm and it was so cold and his blood was freezing and shattering in his veins and—

\--it receded. Severus jerked his arm free and clutched it to himself, then looked up.

His spell had knocked Voldemort close enough to Sirius for him to leap onto Voldemort, and now the other man was clinging to Voldemort, winding his arms around Voldemort’s thrashing form while he—he _kissed_ the Dark Lord. Fiercely, unrelentingly, with no gentleness and no lack of violence. And as he did, the blackness drew back and thinned out till it was merely a whisper of a shade, and then till it disappeared completely.

The Devil had sent Sirius back as a kind of Dementor. Merlin…Severus started to laugh hysterically and only lack of breath forced him to stop. Lucifer had an exquisitely keen sense of humor, and it was horrific.

* * *

“What the—” Patil lowered her wand and stared in disbelief at the Death-Eater that had suddenly dropped to writhe at her feet.

Draco stepped up just as the hood fell off to disclose his former friend Gregory’s face. Their eyes met, but only briefly because then the green flash of the Death Spell blocked out Goyle. “I don’t know what, but don’t hesitate yourself, you stupid cow. When they’re down, _then_ we get up.”

His cigarette had long since burned down to the smallest remnant possible, but Draco had held onto the butt. He took it out and sniffed at its ashy end, then went on to the next one.

“You used to have trouble killing, I hear,” Lupin said, casually like they were having tea. He, Draco noted, wasn’t stopping to watch either.

“That was a long time ago.” Something rustled behind Draco and he reflexively ducked the spell, then whirled to kill the wizard who’d sent it. Rookwood, wanting a last hurrah. Draco put him out of his misery. “I’ve learned better.”

Lupin looked sideways at him. “Better?”

“Better according to how you measure things nowadays. You can hold onto your old honor code if you want, but I thought it was pretty clear that we’d washed all that down the drain,” Draco snapped. He stalked on ahead. No, this part wasn’t pretty, but it was necessary and he was going to get it done while he was still too full of the battle to think on it much.

That was how they survived. That was how they’d made it, and no point in dwelling on what-ifs.

* * *

Sirius ripped himself off of Voldemort, who had stopped struggling a long while ago, and fell back with a gasp. After a moment, he made an attempt to roll over and push himself up on his elbow. Severus started towards him, but Harry got there first. He grabbed Sirius by the shoulders and pulled him up, then wrapped his arms around Sirius and buried his face in Sirius’ neck. He was audibly sobbing.

By the time Severus crouched down near them, Sirius had regained enough strength to feebly pat at Harry’s back. He was trying to shush Harry as if Harry were anything like a child. “No, no, you have to, you have to. It’s okay—I don’t blame you,” he was saying. “It’s all right, it’s all right.”

“It is not. Don’t whitewash it, Black,” Severus rasped. He heard his voice begin to catch and coughed vigorously to clear it. He snarled at himself for even succumbing to it, when he’d known that it would end like this.

Sirius glared at him over Harry’s shoulder, but after a few seconds, Sirius’ gaze contained more pity mixed with mockery than true anger. He nuzzled at the side of Harry’s face, but continued to look straight at Severus. “Harry. Come on. Please. It’ll be over after this.”

“But you’ll be _dead_!” Harry cried out. His fingers dug so deeply into Sirius’ shoulders that Severus was surprised there was no bleeding. “You’ll be dead and this time I _know_ I’ll never get to see you again.”

“But Harry, if you don’t—” Sirius winced “—damn it, he’s stirring already. If you don’t, this’ll go on and on and there’ll never be a chance for something different.”

The center of Severus’ chest hurt, and his mouth and throat were so dry that merely breathing was agony. He sat down beside them and put his hand on the floor, very close to Sirius’ leg. So close that when Sirius shifted a moment later, Severus’ fingertips grazed the other man. “Listen to your godfather—to someone. For once in your li—your existence, Potter.”

“You know when _Snape’s_ saying that, then you’d better,” Sirius laughed. He sounded shaky, but when he pulled back to cup Harry’s face in his hands, his gaze and face were firm. “It might…it could be different. But not now, not with how things still are. Voldemort has to die, for good, and then we might know. Then…Harry.”

“I know.” Harry’s voice was very soft, and though he spoke only two words, he managed to fracture them a thousand times. He looked at Sirius one last time, then dropped his eyes. His hands began to tighten on Sirius’ back again.

Sirius looked at Severus again. The bastard even curled his lip a little, as if daring Severus to look away. Of course, Severus wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, even when Sirius’ lip curled out of silent agony—it was brief; Harry clearly made it as easy as possible—even when the light in Sirius’ eyes slowly clouded over with shadows. When Sirius’ head tipped back, Severus got up so he could continue meeting Sirius’ gaze.

The shadows gathered around them and began to tug at Sirius’ body. At first Harry resisted, fiercely, but then one curl of shadow slashed blood from his cheek and he reluctantly let go. He watched till they’d engulfed Sirius, and then till they’d all flowed back through the Veil.

Then, slowly as an old man, he turned and walked past Severus as if he were the only one in the room. Much to Severus’ surprise, Harry stopped by Lucius’ body and carefully, gently straightened it out so the limbs lay neatly on the bench instead of dangling off it. Last of all, Harry delicately pushed down Lucius’ eyelids. He stopped that way for a good minute, staring pensively down at Lucius.

“He was a Horcrux at the end. I wonder,” Harry said. Then he smiled bitterly, and fresh moisture glittered on his lashes. “Fuck. Then I’d probably have to do something for _that_ son of a bitch again, and if it’d be worth it—”

“Being the one who lives isn’t an easy burden, nor is it a short-lived one.” Severus paused, then opened his mouth.

Harry looked up at Severus, then shook his head. A trace of genuine regret flickered through his eyes. “Sorry, professor. Not your time yet, and I don’t get to kill at will now. But I’ll see you later. I promise.”

“I’m beginning to believe you can keep your promises, Mr. Potter,” Severus dryly said. He turned around and the thought of the long, lonely road still ahead of it briefly seized up his lungs in his chest. But he forced himself to breathe, and slowly walked out of the place.

* * *

“I think…it’s over.” Lupin came to stand beside Draco so both of them looked down at the last Death-Eater.

Yaxley, thankfully, had been a secret smoker. Draco blew a smoke ring as he eyed the pack wedged between the rigid fingers of his wand-hand. Then he shrugged and offered one to Lupin; the werewolf’s nostrils flared and it was obvious he knew where those had come from. But he ended up taking one.

“I think so too. So now we’ve got the whole world to ourselves. This broken, bloody, horrible world. Merlin knows what we’ll end up building out of it,” Draco muttered.

“It won’t be like before. I’m sure of that much,” Lupin strongly replied. He turned around to stare at the carnage behind them, and his certainty got the shakes. No one was celebrating back there—everyone was too tired, or too hurt, or too dead. They were all just relieved. “It might be bad again, but not in the same way.”

Draco had to agree with that. “No, we did a damn good job of making sure we can’t fuck it up that way again.”

Apparently that was too much pessimism for Lupin, because he dropped his cigarette to the ground and stomped it out with his heel. “I’ll see you back at the—” he stopped, then corrected himself. “I suppose I’ll see you,” he finished, and went back to the house.

Perhaps, and perhaps not. At the moment, Draco didn’t feel like thinking on that because he too was tired. He smoked a little more, and turned around to watch the sun rise. There weren’t many clouds today, he saw. He had no idea about tomorrow, but the light on his face was warm and the cigarette was good and he could breathe without anyone on his back. 

He exhaled so the smoke wisped over the sun, and smiled crookedly to himself.


	16. Extra: Love in Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loneliness drives people to form strange attachments.

“A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.”  
\--Gabriel García Márquez

* * *

It was a small but well-appointed room, apparently meant to be a kind of small study. The furniture was of dark exotic woods and heavy brocade, while the shelves were lined with thick books in expensive-looking bindings and the window dressings could have given Versailles a lesson in extravagance.

After the first half-hour—according to the ornate enamel clock on the mantel, since time passed very differently here—Lucius ventured off the sofa and hesitantly explored the room. No one had entered since he’d been escorted in here, and that was unusual. Hell generally kept a very intimate eye on its inhabitants. The apparent lack of it made him assume that something worse than what he’d already been through was lurking behind the curtains.

Those made him smile. Unpleasantly, and painfully; the art of hell was driving one mad with torment while leaving just enough comprehension intact to appreciate the little jokes like that. Of course there wasn’t anything behind those heavy folds, save for perhaps a landscape of eternally incinerating souls.

He had on clothing, for the first time in a very, very long time—a few centuries, he thought. Time passed so oddly…or perhaps it didn’t pass at all, and its illusion was just another trick used to twist the knives. But the illusions were very good. His suit, for example, was a near-perfect copy of one he’d owned when he was just graduated from Hogwarts: medium-weight weave, with the coat and vest and trousers the color of sea-washed pebbles, and the shirt a fine white linen. Black suspenders kept the shirt perfectly flat against him, and black arm bands made sure that when he finally stripped off the coat, the sleeves didn’t billow awkwardly.

It was always too warm down here, but any kind of protection was not to be taken lightly. The only reason he had taken off the coat was because he’d needed something to occupy his hands. Newly healed, they were full of sparks and nervous twitches, and twisting them in fabric seemed as best a way as any to keep them from trembling.

He’d rounded the room a second, faster time when the door opened. Lucius hastily turned about and instinctively backed up at the same time. The back of his heel struck a footstool, which was too solid to rock. But he did, and his hand came convulsively down on the top of an armchair as he stared at the doorway. He dropped his coat.

Harry looked more or less the same as the first time Lucius had met him—after his death, that was. He’d mended his glasses so both lenses were whole, but he still wore black and his skin still was pale as ice and his eyes green fire. He saw Lucius right away and his mouth twisted in a familiar angry smile. “This looks like something out of a Victorian brothel. I hate Lucifer to begin with, but Christ, I really hate his sense of humor.”

The walls rippled dangerously and Lucius glanced anxiously at them. His eyes inevitably went back to Harry. “You’ve been talking to him?”

“Negotiating,” Harry corrected. He came all the way into the room and closed the door behind him with a careless twist of his hand. “If you can call it that. It’s more like trying to stab a snake with a needle.”

“Negotiating.” Lucius put both hands on the back of the chair and squeezed hard, feeling the leather sink deep beneath his fingers. His voice sounded raspy and he willed it not to crack. He couldn’t help staring pathetically as Harry sauntered across the room to him. If this was another illusion, it was the most intricate and hurtful yet. “What on earth for? I understand Sirius Black went to a…better place this time around.”

One of Harry’s eyebrows arched. He looked casually around as he stopped before Lucius, then leaned against the side of the chair so Lucius could sense his body heat. “They told you that? Not that they’re not right, but…huh. You sound like they’re really enjoying what they do to you.”

“We generally aren’t permitted to speak. I’m out of practice,” Lucius said. He was vaguely surprised—vaguely, because most of his attention was elsewhere—at how steady his voice still was.

“I can’t say I feel sorry for you about that. You were a fucking bastard. And even when you did turn around, it wasn’t because you suddenly got a conscience.” Harry rested his arm on the top of the chair less than a finger’s-width from Lucius’ hand. His eyes wandered over Lucius, warmth traveling wherever he looked, and eventually paused at Lucius’ throat.

He suddenly lifted his hand and ran his fingertips down Lucius’ jaw; Lucius didn’t quite stifle his gasp. The touch awakened all kinds of fire that radiated outward in agonizing, wonderful lines, and that only intensified when Harry turned his hand to cup Lucius’ jaw. His thumb swept over Lucius’ lower lip and Lucius opened his mouth just in time to catch the tip of it before it stroked over his cheek. It dipped to tip up his chin so Harry could look at something. Lucius couldn’t see what that was, but the angle was right for the base of his throat and the flesh there obligingly flushed.

The sudden flood of sensation painfully singed his nerves, already over-sensitized from the ministrations of his jailers. He tightened his grip on the chair, but had to sway anyway to maintain his balance.

“You’re in sorry shape, no matter how nicely they cleaned you up,” Harry muttered. He lessened the pressure so Lucius could lower his head. His hand dropped a little so it loosely circled Lucius’ throat, the fingers tickling through strands of hair while the thumb moved slowly over the pulse. “I wasn’t quite this done in.”

“You didn’t come in with my record, I suppose.” Lucius winced at how breathless he sounded. He was quite positive now that Harry, at least, was real, but he doubted that this meeting was intended to improve the conditions of his stay here and he wanted very much to delay the onset of the unpleasant part.

Harry laughed a little. His hand dropped farther, sliding away to hook two fingers behind Lucius’ tie. He pulled the knot loose, then left the ends to hang while he smoothed down them with the back of his hand. “No. Have you seen Voldemort?”

“I heard him screaming for a while. They let him talk—he was rather amusing.” If anyone was watching, they had to be noting the feelings of obvious pleasure washing through Lucius. Noting and turning it into more agony later, but he couldn’t keep himself from leaning in to Harry’s hand. He dug his nails so deep into the chair that he felt one of them begin to lift away from the flesh. “What are you doing here?” he half-moaned, half-hissed.

He startled Harry, who actually stepped back, and then Lucius was thudding down on his knees and desperately clutching the pain of absent touch to himself. He shuddered, doubling over. His nose almost hit Harry’s shoe as it slid forward and Lucius jerked back, then pressed his face hard against Harry’s shin. Knee. Thigh.

There he was stopped by a hand on top of his head. It slipped fingers into his hair and moved downward before he could turn into it, and suddenly, oh, Merlin, Harry was kissing him. After becoming accustomed to so much pain, Lucius found the edge of bliss had turned just as sharp, but he threw himself against it anyway. He brought up his hands and clutched at Harry’s arms, yielded up his mouth. He was shaking when Harry’s hands pushed over his belly and snapped the vest buttons, slid beneath the suspenders and twisted them off so his arms were forced back behind himself.

He flinched when they snapped tight about his wrists. Harry noticed, mouth pausing where it’d been sweetly torturing soreness to life in the corner of Lucius’ lip. Then he fisted his hand in Lucius’ hair again and took Lucius’ mouth so savagely that blood was smeared over Lucius’ chin when they parted. “Bloody fucking Morningstar. Likes to fuck up everything for everyone,” Harry snarled.

“Please—it doesn’t matter. Please…oh, please, one time…” Lucius begged, pressing forward again. He pushed his face deep into the curve of Harry’s neck and licked at it, bowed as best he could into the run of Harry’s hands over his back and buttocks and thighs. He was nearly weeping by the time Harry came back and softly sucked the blood from his face.

Harry stood up, and Lucius was on the verge of finally cracking—this, and not the whole of Hell, could break him. But then Harry’s fingers were cupping the back of his head and pulling him forward so his cheek rubbed over Harry’s trousers, felt the heat pooling up in the tense flesh beneath the fabric, and Lucius was relieved he was glad he was already kneeling, else he would’ve collapsed. He heard Harry talking in a fast, low, ragged voice, and the sound of it was so beautiful that he completely missed the words. He only knew the sense of touch: nails digging into his scalp, the bite of metal as the side of Harry’s fly scraped his cheek, the hot silken warmth of Harry’s skin sliding over his lips. This would be taken from him later, inevitably, but he was empty as he was now and the chance to fill himself up, however briefly, was too much to resist.

“Not out of—practice—with this,” Harry muttered, and the words were like slaps. But thumbs stroked over Lucius’ cheek immediately afterward and soothed that away, soothed the strain as well. They tipped up his head so his throat ached with the effort of accommodating, but he could stare at Harry’s eyes and watch the sweat give a gleam to that white skin, the hot flare of the pupils, and he counted it a good trade.

He felt like it was a dream. The hyper-awareness of every moment, in a place where one never was allowed to sleep or seek out the numbness of unconsciousness, had faded and it was all so miraculously good that he sought out the dullness as a safeguard against the cut of reality. He buried himself in the blur of cradling hands and snapping eyes and didn’t even realize it’d ended till Harry had dropped to the floor in front of him again, Harry’s taste an odd sweetness coating the inside of his mouth.

Lucius woke a little when Harry’s hands pushed at his legs, yanked the suspender clips off the front of his trousers and pulled at the waistband. He shook his head and Harry abruptly curved to catch his mouth, and he sank distractedly into the play of tongues and lips. The hard prick of teeth temporarily roused him—Harry was saying to hell with it and then his nails were sliding in through long rips to caress Lucius’ thighs. He slipped them under and pulled so Lucius rose, and somehow the cloth was stripped away, but still remained scratching against Lucius’ skin.

Then Harry breathed out so it whipped past Lucius’ jaw, and the world suddenly crashed back into focus. Lucius pulled at his bound hands and twisted, scraping his prick against the rough cloth of Harry’s trousers. He tried to push himself further up, press their bodies together, but got nowhere till Harry put a hand to the small of his back and shoved him. His knees left the floor and Lucius was haphazardly straddled over Harry’s legs, balanced on his toes, till Harry’s fingers curved over his buttocks and thighs.

Harry lifted him up, and then let him down just far enough for the tip of Harry’s prick to tease at Lucius. He whined and threw his weight down, but in the end it was Harry’s decision and Lucius was left at his mercy. Before he finally eased Lucius down, he made Lucius suffer through wicked fingers and the sharp slice of a nail over the thinnest skin, and a hot mouth sucking Lucius’ throbbing lip in time to the rubbing of a thumb over and never in. By then Lucius’ cheeks were, in fact, damp with something besides sweat and Harry licked that up with every evidence of pleasure as he allowed Lucius to slide down.

His prick opened Lucius wide and deep—more so than any of the torture had, though they had had greater physical means at their disposal. But when Lucius was finally seated, knees clamped to Harry’s hips and body shaking, he’d been cracked and splayed so that every inch of him seemed to be on display for Harry’s perusal. He moved at Harry’s pleasure, stopped at it. He needed only a graze of a fingertip to moan and when Harry began to fuck him in earnest, he honestly thought that he—whatever he was now, whether that was merely soul or something else as well—wasn’t going to survive it. If Harry breathed on him in the right way, he’d shatter.

And he did, and Lucius did.

* * *

“You weren’t supposed to enjoy that that much. Shit. He’s going to fuck with me that much more before I’m done this time.” Harry pulled on the other half of his shirt, then raked his hand through his hair. The motion shook hot drops of sweat from his head onto Lucius, who was resting his head on Harry’s shoulder. “I can’t believe it. You actually missed me. I think both he and I thought I’d have to talk you into it.”

He absently stuck out his tongue to lap up a drop. Then he heard Harry, and looked quickly up. “What?”

It was a while before Harry answered. He glanced at Lucius, then looked away, his expression unreadable. His hand dropped to Lucius’ back, skated over it and then settled over Lucius’ hip. “I made another deal with Lucifer. You talked Voldemort into making you a Horcrux, so technically…well, it’s trickier because you would’ve gone here anyway. The Dark Mark actually stamped you lot property of Hell after you died—bet he never told you that.”

“No…wait. If the Dark Mark worked like a witchmark, then—Draco?” Lucius rasped.

Harry glanced at him again, then grinned sourly. His hand flexed deep into the flesh of Lucius’ thigh so Lucius winced, then relaxed and stroked over the spot. “Well, you’ve not changed that much. No, he lived long enough for Voldemort’s pact to be broken, so he’s not got the Mark now. It’s just up to however he chooses to live his life.”

Good. Then Lucius had actually done all he could for his son, and could let that concern rest. He laid back down and half-closed his eyes, concentrating on the feel of Harry’s fingers dancing about the first wavy hairs that led down between his legs. “So you made another deal. I thought the first time would have put you off for good.”

“Yeah, you’d think. But it’s an awful job, being a death. Awful and so…you never see anyone except when they’re dying, and then it’s only a second. I thought Hell was bad, but at least you always had company,” Harry pensively said. Then he shook his head, his mouth twisting again. “That is so twisted. But it’s true. True enough for me to bother going to Lucifer, so I swear to God—” the room rumbled “—you’d better be worth it.”

Lucius stared at him. The room spun lazily, then settled back into place, and still Harry was looking back with eyes so clear that every particle of hatred and rage and lust and warped wistfulness could be seen. He wasn’t lying.

“I’m about halfway through, and the Morningstar invites me in for a ‘conjugal visit.’ I think he’s just trying to butter me up again, but that’s his problem.” Harry put his hand beneath Lucius’ chin again and lifted it. There was a sharp, slicing pain along Lucius’ jaw, and then Harry was licking a trickle of blood off his fingernails. After a moment, he pressed his thumb to Lucius’ mouth and let Lucius suck off the rest. “I’ll be done in another week, I think.”

“A week.” So that was the razor’s edge. It cut so Lucius dropped hard against Harry and curled in, trying to extract every last sensation he could. “That’s months here.”

Harry shrugged. “Yeah, well, you’ll just have to deal with it. I did, and nobody came back for me.”

He kissed Lucius before a reply could come, and when he was done, he was on his feet and leaning over Lucius. He let go and stepped back, his mouth moving. But he cut off whatever he’d been about to say and instead simply turned sharply on his heel. He walked towards the door and so didn’t see Lucius’ hand move convulsively towards his ankle, but he looked over his shoulder once his hand was on the knob. He still looked a little incredulous, but his glance carried a last trace of warmth and Lucius drank it in till the door blocked it out.

Lucius slowly sank back to the floor. He buried his face in some of his clothes, which were strewn about the room, and pressed his fingers against the cut on his jaw till it sang.


End file.
